Computer programs exist which present educational lessons to students. Commonly, the lessons are organized in a fixed sequence by the professor who prepared the lessons.
This fixity-of-sequence does not accommodate the inherent time-changing, and mutually inconsistent, interests of the minds of the students. For example, in a given academic term, many university students take an identical set of courses, such as Physics I, Chemistry I, French I, and English Literature I.
However, based on the background knowledge of the students, and their needs for extra information or practice, different students will undertake different types, and amounts, of work to complete a given course. That is, some students are better-prepared than others, and some learn, or work, faster than others.
Therefore, in general, when students are given a collection of assignments to perform, they do not attack the assignments in the same sequence, nor do they work on identical assignments at any given time. Consequently, the natural approach of students is not consistent with the fixity-of-sequence found in many educational computer systems.
The state of the art in computer-assisted education is such that little if any personalization is provided to accommodate the different backgrounds and learning styles evident in a diverse student population. In addition, computer-assisted education and training has the opportunity to offer students the chance to experience simulated events that allow the students to actively engage the virtual world in ways not possible or practical in real life. This opportunity has the potential to make computer-based education and training better than a book, better than a workbook and better than a video; i.e., alternative means of delivering information.