The newly issued US patent 7,536,363 describes a goal-based computerized education system. It's an elaborate piece of work: 18 inventors, 30 figures, and a main claim (claim 1) that spans almost an entire page. It interested me because it referred to my old invention, which was probably an order of magnitude simpler. Nevertheless, I found the patent's title intriguing, and decided to navigate through pages of legalese and discover the original idea. It wasn't easy, but eventually I identified a short phrase in claim 1 that described the main useful function of the system:

(d) evaluating progress toward the goal and providing the feedback that further motivates accomplishment of the goal.

Everything else in the invention was about setting up a simulation environment for making progress and figuring out goals that would motivate further learning.

It seems like the problem they are trying to solve is the excruciating slowness of most real-life-learning-on-the-job education methods. Having a good simulator allows users to make as many business decisions in one hour, as s/he would make in months or even years of running an actual business. The same way, the range/quantity/quality of emotions we experience during a good movie is probably greater than what we experience in weeks and months of normal life.

Which leads me to believe that educational systems of the future will be more like movies and games than like textbooks and lectures.