Capstone Proposal

Executive summary

Set up the problem and your solution in a compact paragraph. Add specific, colorful details and numbers about the organization, your contact person, key deliverables, and long term impacts of your work. Think of this as your elevator pitch, 30 seconds or less.




The problem is how to offer academic programs, that meet state standards and guide lines, to our students when the normal the schedule does not allow for the flexibility to do this.

The solution is to develop comprehensive Hybrid Online learning environments to meet the academic needs of our students.We are a 9-12 school with about 400 students. We have recently increased graduation requirements from 21 credits to 28 credits. We also run our school on a block schedule format. The combination of these two things has made it difficult for our students to schedule their courses.

I plan to initiate this by developing a Hybrid Online learning course for Traffic Safety Education at the high school. I will have this completed by August 2007 to deliver at the capstone presentation.My plan is to implement this at my high school during the second semester of the 2007-08 school year. If all goes well I will then share this concept of online learning to other traffic safety educators in the state of Vermont during the 2008-09 school year by hosting workshops and possible courses to prepare them to implement this concept at their schools.I will also share the concept with my peers at my high school. And if all goes well with this I plan to then present this concept at the national level at the 2009 ADTSEA conference.

1 Project

1a. Rationale: What problem are you solving? Quantify the problem.
How do you expect to measure success?
What unique aspects of networks are you leveraging to solve this problem.
Why is information technology the right way to solve this problem?

The hardest part is framing the problem. Make sure you are solving a REAL problem, and that your client organization also believes this as a real problem. Don't fall prey to "it seems like a good idea" or worse "is cool".

Think carefully about scope. Don't sign up to save the whales, or develop a five-page brochure-ware site for your dog.

The problem as stated above is the conflicts that our students have in scheduling 28 credits in a 4 year time frame with the use of block scheduling. The success will be measured by designing a quality course that meets state standards and requirements that allows students to meet face to face as well as online. The success will also be measured by how accessible the course is to our students so that they can take the course when they are eligible for their permit.
I plan to work closely with the following groups and individuals to solve this problem:Chris Hodsden, Vermont Department of Education Traffic Safety Education, Vermont Driver Traffic Safety Education Association, American Driver Traffic Safety Education Association,Professor Frederik Mottola,Bellows Falls Union High School technology supervisors.
Information technology is the way to solve this problem because of the accessibility that our students have to technology at our school. We have access to the use of First Class,one of our technology supervisors is currently looking into installing moodle at our school as well as setting up school wiki's for the staff to use in their class preparation. I have access to digital cameras and audio equipment to to podcasting. Overall I believe that this is the way to go to solve our problem. I hope that this will allow other staff members to develop online as well as technological support for our students

1b. Goals:

What outcomes to expect your project to have on the organization?
When will the organization see the benefits of your work?
How is your client going to measure the success of the site?

Who will receive credit and "look good" because of your efforts?
What will be the long term impacts on the organization?

Goals are different than deliverables. describe the OUTCOME of your efforts. The benefits. The value you add. For example a marketing plan may be a deliverable, but the outcome is increased ecommerce sales from X to Y over some period of time. It doesn't need to be about money of course. Just be certain that your goals are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-sensitive.

I expect that this will be a stepping stone to providing our students with other online opportunities and prepare them for other online experiences when they go to college and get out into the real world.
My high school should see benefits from this project starting the second semester of the 2007-08 school year.
The success of the project will not only be the increase in flexibility for scheduling but also the fact that this will be a high quality program that meets state standards and guidelines for traffic safety education. Current online courses seem to provide only low quality educational experiences with their biggest selling points being that the course is quick and cheap.
Our school district will look good by providing our students the ability to take an online learning experience before they go to college. It will also reduce the problems with scheduling the course for those who prefer to take it online.
The long term impact on our school will be that when the administration, school boards, and community see that courses can be developed that are equal if not better in quality and flexibility than straight face to face then they will be eager to use technology to enhance our students educational experiences.
I see an educational community that welcomes both Face to Face learning as well as the Online Learning experience. In order to accomplish this I'll have to deliver a quality and worth while experience for the students.

1c. Process: What techniques that you learned in this program will you employ?

Practice your new toolkit! Do a value chain analysis, apply process engineering, use ithink to simulate viral effects, quantify the benefits through a Return on Investment calculation, etc.

How will you work with the organization to achieve your goals?
Will you need to have meetings or lead workshops with key stakeholders?
Where will the work happen?

A mistake that students have made in past years is to pick a project that requires days and days of meetings to make meaningful progress. A digital strategy project for a large company, for example, may require A LOT of synchronous meeting time. Make sure to factor your travel appetite and budget, and scale expectations appropriately.

I am only at the halfway part in the overall program but I'll try to give you a brief idea of what I should be able to use.
From the pedagogy classes I intend to use the educational course development strategies that we are going over at the present time. Such things as developing goals ,objectives,assessment tools,evaluation tools (these will be important to catch any problems so that I can make the proper revisions), and of course the correct use of technology tools to deliver the online experience
The legal and ethics class will be important to make sure that the program protects students privacy,etc.
The online research class will be important to give my students as well as myself the ability to go out and seek the newest ideas and concepts.
The design classes,especially design II, will play an important role in my designing learning tools to deliver course content and to make sure that I can address all the issues in regards to pedagogy.

I will have to work with all of the above parties to ensure that the investment in time that I will be putting in will meet their expectations. Example, at our school I will need to make sure that I work within our teachers contract so that the teachers can see that the principal is making time in my normal daily schedule to deliver the program to the students. This will be very important to getting other teachers to buy into this concept further down the road.It will take time but I have very close connections with all the people and organizations that I need to work with.

1d. Deliverables & milestones: What are the monthly, or finer-grained deliverables that will assure you and the client that you are making progress? What deliverables, or feedback do you need from the client at various stages of the project? Have you built in buffers that permit some schedule slipping without jeopardizing your graduation?

Make a table! Columns should be: deliverable, person responsible, draft due date, final due date. Be sure to add things that you need FROM the client as well like feedback, content and any resources that go with certain deliverables (you may need special software, training, hardware, or funds). Be sure to list these in as much detail as you can on your table.

Some of your first activities may be interviews to fully understand the intended audience for your project, the dynamics of your client's business, and sessions to get alignment on project goals, etc. Your last activities should include assembling and giving final presentations, and project debriefs to talk about the process, their assessment of your work, and plans for follow-on consulting.

I will have to design the course to fit in with our 9 week quarters as the online course will need to work concurrently with the behind the wheel. I have already started to collect the raw data that I will need to make sure that I meet state mandates. I have also made personal contacts with important players to make sure I can give and receive feedback on the project.
I would hope to have the 9 week units of instruction broken down into three segments for April,May and June and use the month of July to do all the tweaking of the project and be ready to deliver the project to you in August.I also intend to use the month of march to continue refining my final proposal.

2 Client

2a. Organization details. What's the short history of the organization? What are their revenues? Growth rate? Profitability? Key competitors? Competitive advantages? Threats?

You can't help an organization that you don't understand. Make sure to budget TIME to research, interview and thoroughly understand all of the details. Don't be shy. You need to know sources of revenues, cost centers, and the CEO's biggest goals as well as concerns. We will ask you these questions in your final presentation - get the facts. If your client requests one, be sure to ask the Director of Academic Programs for a Non-Disclosure Agreement, which lays out the safeguarding of intellectual property.

The client is a public school. I see no problem with the support I'll need from my principal. Our school board has had a history of trying to micro manage and this could be a problem if one or two members want to put too much input into the process. The good thing is that the weather will be getting good and they are less likely to want to over commit to anything.
The only other problem I have heard rumbling about is that one of the tech supervisors is concerned about the cost of using First Class for our student population but this is why I'm looking at Moodle, Wiki's, Blogs,etc.

2b. Competitive landscape. What are the terms of competition?

Is the industry growing overall? By what percentage per year?
Who are the leaders in this industry? What makes them great?

Here is your chance to demonstrate your understanding of the industry. You want to articulate the macro forces that are play on your client organization.

As long as people keep having children this industry will continue to grow. We have a young principal who grew up in the area and has close ties to the community so that support should continue.

2c. Stakeholder map. Who is your contact? Who do they report to? What is their annual budget authority? What would make this person succeed in the eyes of their boss or company?

Understanding the power and reporting structure inside an organization is a key to success, not only for those people who work for your client, but also for your consulting role on this project and in the future. It's always complicated, delicate and political. Get used to it. Map it out. Help your contact reach her goals and create a lasting relationship with the organization for ongoing partnership benefits.

Chris Hodsden will be my contact and in the field of education it is important to stay on the cutting edge of innovation and show that you are using the equipment and facilities that you ask the community to support.The community support on the budget is very important.By having traffic safety be the first to try online learning there is less pressure to not be successful than lets say a math or science. That would be their perception not mine.

3 Team

3a. Roles and responsibilities: Who will be the team that works on the project both from Marlboro and from the client organization?
Why are you the right person to undertake the project?
How do your skills, expertise and interests map to the requirements of the project?

You may choose to have a multi-student team working on a project ONLY if your roles are clearly articulated. For example, you may have one person in charge of design, branding and usability; another in charge of strategy and market research; and other in charge of programming and implementation. Multi-student teams will receive ONE grade, so be very careful choosing your team and coordinating project deliverables. You are likely to learn more about the authentic communication and project management challenges of teams, and your final project MAY ultimately be more impressive, but collaboration is never without landmines. Consider carefully the risk and reward tradeoff of group work.

I have been in the field of traffic safety for the past 29 years. During that time I have served as president of our association twice, teacher of the year for my contributions to traffic safety in Vermont, active member at the New England and National levels attending as well as hosting conferences.I have a strong commitment to the school that I work for both as a teacher and community member.The people and groups that I will be working with have been active supporters of mine for the past 29 years and are very committed to traffic safety and education in general.

3b. Communication plan: what tools will you use to review deliverables, and stay in-touch?
What norms will you establish around communication?
Will you have weekly meetings, or progress reports?
Do people have preferred modes of communication (fax, pager, cell phone, IM, email) or times of day?
What is the contact information of EVERYONE involved?

Step 1: get the contact information of EVERYONE involved, and their rules (don't call me after 9pm or only use my cell phone on weekends or I only check my email in the mornings). Write this all down and distribute it to the team and your clients.

I have the direct link to Chris Hodsden at the school. The consultant at the Department of Education is available by phone,email,fax,and personal visitation. The state association president is the same as the consultant. Fred Mottola and ADTSEA will be more by phone,email and fax.

4. Risks and assumptions

4a. Risks: what are the three things that are most likely to go wrong?
Are the risks based on people and personalities, or technology, or market dynamics? What is your plan to recover from each anticipated risk?

This is a standard section of any technology or business plan. Anticipating risks and thinking through fall-back plans gives you instant respect as a realist.

Schedule conflict with teacher contract.Work with the teachers association, and school boards to make it happen,

Students who would like to do it on line but have no computer experience, no computer, or loss school privilege to use computer. Set up a process where the study skills class for freshman goes over computer use. Set up guidelines for what happens when loss of school access takes place during the course.

Students who still want and need that face to face class instruction. Provide for this in the usual way.

4b. Key assumptions: What or whom are you counting on to make the project a success? Do you need timely reviews and feedback from the client? Do you need content? Do you need technical execution assistance? Do you need access to their servers or a hosting service? Are you counting on being reimbursed for expenses and travel costs? Do you need funding for particular purposes (training, time, fees, specialized services)?

This is a standard section of any good proposal. There are always assumptions, and it's typically in your interest to make them explicit. Ambiguity around deliverables or reimbursable harms consultants and clients in the long run, so make fair disclosures about what you'll need and expect now, avoiding misunderstandings later.

I will need a capstone advisor who has expertise in both technology pedagogy and skillful in designing technology tools such as podcasts,vodcasts and how to use the software to deliver the content.

We expect you to work hard on your Capstone. We expect you to solve tough, non-trivial problems. And we expect that in return you will learn a great deal about how to attack real-world, complicated, Internet strategy problems, and implement plans and systems to help real companies succeed in a new digital landscape.

For the investment you make in time, effort, energy and brainpower the payback will be in rich learning and rich experiences that you can immediately apply to your career after Marlboro.

Additional Comments:I have been excited about doing this since day one. I knew what the problem my school was facing in regards to scheduling and I believe I've made the right choice in attending Marlboro as well as my Capstone Project choice. Let the work and fun of developing begin.Oh ya it already has.