Hi, everyone.

My name Dr. Michele Forte and I just wanted to take a minute or

two to review your Capstone project.

So, we know that when you're taking an online course, or

you're perhaps taking a training module, in the online environment,

navigating the American E-learning system can be rewarding.

But there are also some challenges, and perhaps, barriers along the way.

This project will ask you to identify a barrier, and then write a plan for

improvement to address that barrier.

The major topics in the course outline common areas of confusion,

we very often find students struggle, with which students struggle.

So for example, they might involve overcoming barriers in technology or

language or culture.

Sometimes academic systems can provide some pitfalls.

And academic communications can also be an issue.

And also, you might wish to think more deeply about professional contexts and

what that might look like.

So within one of these topics you will actually identify a specific challenge or

barrier.

And then you'll think about the competencies that are implied in that

barrier or challenge.

And we'll have various steps along the way to help you do

this which I will talk about in a second.

Finally, you will create your capstone project,

which is simply a plan for improvement.

This plan is really yours to make based on what you learn about yourself and

what you learn through the course as you move through.

And so, we're hoping that you it very helpful.

So how do you write this plan?

The course is designed so

that each week you're actually working on portions of this capstone.

You're going to fill out what we're calling a learning journal.

We've created a template for you each week so

that it will help you frame your questions and

frame how you're thinking about various aspects of this learning journal.

So you know we've sort of come up with a little formula for

you, you don't have to necessarily follow this but

we think it might be helpful to think about your responses to your quizzes,

to think about how you're responding to the self assessments and

then we've also provided some other prompts for you to use for reflection and

further self evaluation and all of those add up to your learning journal.

And then in the final module you'll actually have a template that you will

fill out that will constitute your plan for self improvement.

So you will have identified a barrier, you will have taken in

all of the information you've been learning throughout the course.

And this final product will be your plan for

self-improvement, how you hope to address this barrier.

I wanna emphasize that these learning journals are for your eyes only.

We will not ask to see them.

But you will be asked to save copies of them so

you can refer to them, not only throughout this course but

also as you move forward in your online learning experiences.

You might learn new things about yourself, and so we're hoping it's a catalyst for

further learning.

Lastly, one of the most important pieces of all of this is that the IMOOC

provides an opportunity to receive really invaluable feedback from your peers.

And those peer assessments are designed to encourage you

to not only engage each other but also the work you're producing.

And we find that peer feedback and peer assessment are a really important way for

learners to, not only again, engage in that self reflection, but

think about their peer responses, answer questions their peers might have, and

will provide a scoring rubric and instructions for you, so

it's not something around which you should feel intimidated, but

rather it's another aspect of your learning in the course.

So think of all of this as road map of things to include in your plan,

as a road map for success in navigating the American eLearning environment.

It's written by you, for you, and we wish you the best of luck in the course.

Thank you so much.

Capstone Project (video and text descriptions)

iMOOC102: Mastering American e-Learning

Meet the Instructors