Hi Larry!
Have you had the opportunity to try that system out in Madison? If you haven't, you really should because, it is a better system IMHO, than the Lincoln one and does have the capability for simultaneous multiple user training as well as being very scalable when compared to the Lincoln system which will eventually offer a similar package soon enough...
What really irks me about this single unit package Lincoln is offering is the obvious fact that these friggin marketing eggheads that really do not have clue as to properly market something like this in a manner whereby they would have gotten input from us, the instructors out in the field first before coming out with a finished product that has so far been met with mostly skeptical observations very much along the lines we both have observed with respect to it's obvious limitations.
I beleive this is the difference between Lincoln and VRSIM as well as their competitors because they did do some research with respect to making sure they got some instructor input before coming out with their own products.
Yeah I know that I was raving about the system and preaching about everyone needing to invest in these systems because it's going to become a widespread teaching tool soon enough and it will be just that!! Just as soon as they realize that they need to offer them in multiple operator configuration or else they will inevitably do exactly what you mentioned which is to sit in a corner and collect dust much to the dismay of the administrators who though initially that they would be able to pay for itself within the first five years only to find out that it's costing them too much to see any substantial return on investment to keep it in use as a viable training tool that is inherently limited.
I personally think that only a scalable system will be convincing enough to justify purchasing to the rest of the educational institutions besides the large defense contractors, the military or the huge prison systems that so far have been the only ones benefiting from this sort of training. Lincoln and whoever else comes up with similar apckages need to grasp this or they'll be wasting a lot of time and effort in trying to sell them as single unit products.
I read you loud and clear with putting better use of the limited funds to purchase andconstantly upgrade air amanagement systems as opposed to these types of tools especially if they're as limited in their scalability... Instead, combining stirling solar powered engines with vertical axis wind turbines all over the welding area's perimeter will in the long term take a nice chunk out of one's energy costs with respect to their overall operating budget, which would in turn free up some funding to eventually materialize for purchasing practical improvements such as improved lighting and other pragmatic improvements with respect to the overall educational environment!
Tere also needs to be a paradigm shift which I beleive is already starting to happen with respect to advanced audio/visual training aids such as smart boards, and other similar tools hwich offer student many more options than previously available which were mostly a few published versions of fundamental welding technology books and only a limited number of audio/visual resources to supplement the topics covered in the books...
As more and more quality options become available to the instructor, the better the opportunities will be the norm for students to learn from a wider variety of learning methods, and their needs to be better training amongst the instructor themselves in order to identify each students learning personalities in order to better identify which method would be more suitable for that individual student to learn the material better as we all know that there are many different styles of learning that different students may or may not excel in.
So, we need to also develop tools that can screen the variety of student populations preferably before the instructors get to work with the students if at all possible.This way the instructors have more time to customize their individual student training options ahead of time instead of analysis on the fly which sometimes can be inapplicable in such a fast paced curriculum and usually leaves one or two students lagging which IMHO, is unacceptable!
This will be what needs to be addressed in the near term in order to stay in the top tier of educational training facilities because there will be increasing competition from some larger funded corporate entities like the facilities already being expanded by the likes of Westinghouse and the larger energy corporations which will be eventually used to justify other corporate entities to look at and also incorporate into their future training options towards in house training as opposed to partnering with their regional educational entitiesinstead which has been the traditional route and therefore, putting a lot of pressure on the public institutions who offer similar training yet, not as up to date or as efficient as the in house models do in copmparison.
These are my observations as of late ,and as someone who's been training future welder/fabricators for the past fifteen or more years now, I've seen enough changes in the Industrial training and teaching field to see the changes and the the directions we will be heading towards in the very near future which looks pretty promising so long as the funding remains available as well as the interest remains high enough to warrant such continuing expansion and modernization.
Well that's my take on the future of our industry training practices and developments. ;)
Respectfully,
Henry