Just found an extremely facinating video on the CNN website detailing how American soldiers prepare for deployment in Iraq. Apprently, the US Army has developed a National Training Center at Ft. Irwin in the Mojave Desert which realistically simulates all of the stresses a soldier will face on deployment in Iraq. There is even a mock Al-Qaeda organization, complete with a terrorist leader, which stages attacks against the soldiers and organizes political assasinations:
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/js/2.0/video/evp/module.js?loc=dom&vid=/video/bestoftv/2009/12/17/holmes.ft.irwin.training.part1.cnnEmbedded video from CNN Video
A great way for soldiers to synthesize knowledge and activate transferable mental schemata. Obviously creating such an opportunity for high school and university foreign language students would be out of the question, but a digital game-based learning approach could replicate some aspects of the experience in a scalable and more economical fashion. Much like the
David Neville, PhD, MS 