Smith's Icebergs

Peter Smith, (2004, May/June). Of Icebergs, Ships, and Arrogant Captains, EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 39, no. 3 (May/June 2004): 48–58. http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0433.asp

Much of Smith's discussion about online education reminded me of the works I've been reading related to virtual worlds (http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~sstoerge/virtualworlds.htm) and their use in educational settings. Like those who write about virtual worlds, Smith argues that the traditional educational model is out-of-date and no longer adequate for today's students. He mentions that schools do not strive to match educational approaches to students and as a result, stifle learning. Rather than using technology as a solution, Smith contends that these devises are merely add-ons - an afterthought rather than part of the strategic plan. Moreover, Smith recognizes the fact is that the educational community has been slow to adopt the use of new technologies in the classroom, and that the digital divide is still a concern. All of these issues are equally applicable to discussions related to education in virtual worlds. This is not surprising given that some educators are experimenting with virtual worlds as a way to supplement the online course experience. Currently, I am enrolled in a course conducted in Second Life, and the visual components to enrich the interactions in ways that text alone cannot.

The remaining portion of the article concentrates on the online initiatives at California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB). It is worth mentioning that Smith is the founding president of this institution. Because he believes that teachers are placed in schools without proper training, his institution created CalStateTEACH, a program that is "built on individual learners' needs" (p. 54). Instead of the one-size-fits-all model that tends to accompany traditional education, CalStateTEACH is a customized training program.

One of the portions of this article that I found intriguing was the notion of a "mobile transcript" (p. 58). Because I am a product of traditional education, it is difficult for me to envision this type of model and the ways in which it would work. In the late 1990s, I worked at a community college that was venturing into the realm of online courses. One of the first problems that surfaced was dealing with individuals who were not "our students" and determining how their work would translate at other institutions. Over time, partnerships such as the Illinois Virtual Campus (http://www.ivc.illinois.edu/) were formed, but Smith's model appears to go even beyond the scope of institutions within a particular geographic location. For someone like me who wishes to explore regions outside the Midwest, Smith's mobile transcript is appealing and something that would have been ideal when I was an undergrad.

Smith concludes his piece by linking education to the Titanic. By using this metaphor, Smith provides the reader with an image that not only reveals the visible issues and concerns, like the iceberg, but also those that are not readily evident yet no less damaging (an obsolete model). Like the Titanic, education may have hit a few icebergs along its voyage, but it is the model that it is desperately trying to retain that may ultimately lead to its destruction.