This week's blogging topic is Wikis for collaborative learning, knowledge construction, critical thinking, and contextual application

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This week's blogging topic is "Wikis for collaborative learning, knowledge construction, critical thinking, and contextual application."

Hi, this week we take a look at how wikis can be used for collaborative learning,  learning construction, critical thinking, and contextual application. According to West and West (2009)  “during the process of collaboration, educators, must learn to take facilitative roles, in which they prepare students for wiki collaboration, facilitate group progress, and manage conflicts and distractions” (p.21).  Additionally, this allows students located in different regions to successfully communicate and utilize teamwork when working to create a wiki page (Campbell & Ellingson, 2010).

 Lesson Plans                       
    
Home buying process
(1)   Target audience: Military and individuals interested in purchasing a home.
Length of training: 8 weeks  online class

(2)   Learning/Training Objectives:
Week 1: The learner will define what I can afford, where do I want to live, what do I want/need, and how to start?
Week 2: The learner will explore their credit score, and investigate the amount they can be pre-approved for a mortgage.  The learner will identify one of 4 areas to start looking for a house.
 
 The learner will examine homes for sale in various market areas A) DuPont, B) Seattle, C) Lacey, and D) Lakewood
Examine the type of house interested in –single family, condo, multi-family, townhouse
                        -number of bedrooms
                        - price range
                        -specific location near work/water/ near park/near base
Week 3: This will be the first time that each team or group will meet.  The meetings will be done through skype or zoom. Their job is to define dream homes in one of the four areas. The teams will discuss the amount of money, the name of real estate agents. 
   
Week 4: Each learner will be responsible for critiquing and summarizing the information they have thus far for the project the house budget, credit scores, real estate agent. 

  Week 5:  The learner will watch a video 
 which describes hidden costs when purchasing a home. Then learner’s will provide information and identify if they are still able to purchase the potential house.

   




Week 6: The learner investigates the 2-4 pros and cons of each house. The learner elaborates about setting up a meeting with the Veteran Affair office to further discuss loan information.  

Week 7: The learner decides which house he/she would like to purchase.

Week 8: The learner takes the necessary steps to find out the timeline for moving into the house of their choice.








4) The rationale for using the wiki: To provide the adult learner with a place to brainstorm, collaborate,  use the mapping process to be put all information necessary to purchase a house in one shared location that the buyer could access information from the real estate agents, banks, and Veterans Affairs Office in Washington.  This wiki was set up this way so the individuals would be able to find out information about Washington state and houses available in the area. However, the set up and resources could be helpful if the individual lived anywhere in the US.
   
5) Details of how the wiki is used: 

Starting in week 3, learners will use the wiki as a place to brainstorm information about how much money they have to spend, a credit score, the name of a real estate agent. By using the wiki as a place for collaboration, it allows each team member to take the time to spend as much time or as little time further investigating in the house they found. During week 4, the groups meet and collaborative examine and discuss the costs of buying the homes. Additionally, the learners must decide what the requirements and qualifications are for their dream house. Then provide 2-4 pros and cons for each house.   At this time the learners create a flow chart or process map to diagram how they are planning to pay for the house?  This process map will include the hidden costs the learner that the learner finds out from the video on 3 hidden costs when buying a house. The group meets again in week 6, and defines their potential budget for the house. At this time the learner, has to determine how they are planning to pay for the house?  A loan?  If so what type of loan.  VA, another bank loan, and how many years are they planning to get the loan for?  Moreover, what interest rate? Additionally, the group is encouraged to use their wiki, to collaborate and brainstorm on what the best solutions are.  At this point, the instructor provides the learners with a FAQ page about the loan rates and the length of a loan for several banks in the area. This allows the learners the opportunity to do further research. 
After the team member has posted their interview with the Veteran’s Affair Office to the wiki, the rest of the group will be able to view the interview, and this allows the rest of the team members to see if they have any additional questions. If a team member has a question, they can rewatch the interview on the wiki page. By putting all of the necessary resources needed to contact someone for each step of the process of purchasing a house in the wiki, the group has created a resource bank which gives them instant access to any person involved in the process. At this point week 7, the group meets again via zoom and goes back to their wiki page and selects a real estate agent, and the bank they feel comfortable working with to purchase the house. The learner utilizes all resources on the wiki page to contact everyone involved in the home buying process.
Next, the group discusses a situation that could happen. What if I try to purchase this house, and then x, y, and z happen?  The group uses another part of the wiki page to brain storm ideas of what could be done in this case.  It provides the learner's opportunities to look at the big picture and responsibilities before moving forward making a life-changing decision.  At this point, the learner will contact the inspector for termites and doing a general inspection of the house.  If this comes through without any problems, the learner will be able to successfully move forward on their journey to buy the house.
During the very last week of this course Week 8, the learners are excited to have the knowledge and tools to purchase their dream home. The learner will evaluate the wiki tool in the context of the research collaboration for this project.  The group was able to design and create a resource bank filled with the necessary information for the State of Washington.  As the final evaluation of the wiki, the group will have a zoom meeting with the instructor and share the results of their house search and all the resources they have found.



   
6) Suggested Related learning: what if situations, nominal group technique, structural online critiques, process map, and initial brainstorming area

  7) Wiki Activity Evaluation (Rubric)
Criteria for Wiki:
Engage: Each person in the group is responsible for finding their own individual house or dream home they would be interested in purchasing, finding a real estate agent, checking on the mortgage rates, finding a bank, and addressing the pros and cons for the house.  (10 points)

Individual/ Group:This exercise has been created to provide the group and individual with an opportunity to further explore the costs when purchasing a new home in Washington state. Also, this provides the learner with opportunities to further explore opportunities before buying a house. (10 points)

*** An overall grade for this project will be based on students performance, so a peer review and then the teacher will also examine how students have contributed to learning about the process of purchasing a new home and the steps to go through that process. ****

Activity Goal:
Provide individual/groups with an opportunity to further explore the cost of housing in a new area. To be able to meet the following criteria
            -with in 20 miles/ 30 minutes to work
            -Real Estate Contact
            - VA contact information
            - Contact Bank and Real Estate contact to see the timeline to be able to move into new house and paperwork that must be done


References

Campbell, K., & Ellingson, D. A. (2010). Cooperative learning at a distance: An experiment with wikis. American Journal of Business Education, 3(4), 83-90. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.er.lib.k-state.edu/docview/1697486405?accountid=11789


Dutton, J. (2019, February 15). Here's How to Buy a House: A Step-by-Step Guide for the First-Time Home Buyer  Retrieved from https://www.realtor.com/advice/buy/10-step-guide-to-buying-a-house/


Freddie Mac (2019). My Home. Retrieved from  http://myhome.freddiemac.com/buy/timeline.html

Freddie Mac (2015, June 16).  YouTube. 3 Main Costs when Homebuying. [Video file]. Retrieved from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcmuTndtO-0

 
Johnson, C. S. (2017). Collaborative technologies, higher order thinking and self-sufficient learning: A case study of adult learners. Research in Learning Technology, 25, 1-17. doi:
http://dx.doi.org.er.lib.k-state.edu/10.25304/rlt.v25.1981

King, K. P& Cox, T. D. (2011). The professor’s guide to taming technology: Leveraging digital media, web 2.0, and more for learning. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

O’Ferrall, R., personal communication, 2019, March 29). VA home loan bootcamp. 

Practical Money Skills. (2009, April) Lesson Three: Buying a home Retrieved from https://mycornerstone.practicalmoneyskills.com/assets/pdfs/lessons/lev_4/L4TeachersGuide3.pdf

Price, P. (2019). 5 tips for the winning bidder. Coldwell Banker. Retrieved from http://www.perlitaprice.com

Ramsey, D. (2019). Closing on a home what to expect. Retrieved from https://www.daveramsey.com/blog/closing-on-a-house

(2019, April 9). Steps to Buy a House: a guide for first-time home buyers. 1-9.  Retrieved from https://www.realtor.com/advice/buy/buy/10-step-guide-to-buying-a-house

Well Fargo. (2012) Hands-on banking:money skills you need for life Instructor guide Adults version. Retrieved from  https://handsonbanking.org/en/resources/Adults_6_Buying_Home.pdf

West, J, .A., & West, M.L. (2009). Using wikis for online collaboration: The power of the read-write web. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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Comments

  1. HKApril 11, 2019 at 9:50 PM

    An interesting topic and a creative way to use wiki to learn how to buy a house, Colleen. Also glad that you developed learning/training objectives using Bloom's taxonomy (the updated version). Your rationale for the use of wiki was clear.

    Wish though you provided more details on what wiki-mediated learning activities were included. More specifically, I would move those wiki activities from "(2) Learning/Training Objectives" to "5) Details of how the wiki is used" and expand on them.

    Also, as West & West indicated (2009), wikis can be used for "collaborative learning, knowledge construction, critical thinking, and contextual application". However, it's not clear which one(s) your wiki activities were designed for. Would you clarify a bit more on this?

    Thanks.

    HK

    ReplyDelete
  2. C SchulApril 11, 2019 at 11:51 PM

    Thanks HK,
    I will take the opportunity to go and reexamine my lesson plan objectives and how I want to use the wiki and make the changes to the blog. One area the wiki activities focuses on is Knowledge construction, by providing a place for the groups to put all of their information in one place by creating a resource bank, which has links to the necessary information for any of the steps to purchasing a home. Additionally, this is a collaborative wiki where the groups do independent research and bring the information back to the group, then they add information to the wiki. A final tool, process that I will be using with this wiki is to brainstorm through the use of a process map which allows the groups to see the process and flow of how things will be done while they are working on this project. The applications I use with the wiki are collaborative learning, knowledge construction, and contextual application.
    Thanks,
    Colleen

    ReplyDelete
  3. Carli JacobsenApril 13, 2019 at 2:27 PM

    This lesson plan really hits home for me! (pun-intended) When we purchased our first home in Seattle, my husband too a course on home buying similar to this concept - sans wiki. I'm interested in knowing a little more about the target audience and the context for when/where the course would take place. Would this course be offered by an independent contributor who then refer the business to sponsoring Realtors? I'm also thinking that first-time homebuyers are looking for guidance. West and West (2009) discusses the use of scaffolding to support the current capabilities of the students. I would suggest that scaffolding for wiki development and content would be critical in this course. Perhaps the educator provides a list of 10 reputable, recommended Realtors for which the student then conduct research validating and learning/documenting more about their specialties.
    What a fun course to teach! Being a Realtor in my past life, I would jump at the chance to work with your lesson plan.
    West, J, .A., & West, M.L. (2009). Using wikis for online collaboration: The power of the read-write web. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

    ReplyDelete
  4. C SchulApril 13, 2019 at 8:05 PM

    Carli,
    Thank you for your feedback. The target audience for this class would be young adults (17-26), military families, and first time home buyers. The initial thought for creating this course would be to offer a class like this monthly, when I created this I was thinking that it was something that I would be interested in gathering all of the necessary information and presenting to the audience or age group that I mentioned. Thank you for pointing out the part about scaffolding and provide some information and guidance to these individuals. That is something that I would have to add in extra that I had not initially thought of. I could hold a zoom or skype conference with the class to further go over what would be necessary additionally, I would share the resources that we have available from this class. I think the suggestion of providing the students with 10 Realtors is a great idea and I would definitely take into consideration finding out more information about about their specialties. Thanks for stopping by!

    Colleen

    ReplyDelete
  5. Melissa Kay HortApril 14, 2019 at 8:57 PM

    This was a great topic! You’ve included budget, real estate agent, credit score, dream home descriptive, hidden costs, and decision making, all supported by a pros and cons list. This would be an excellent curriculum for family living classes in the high school as well, not that HS students are ready to buy a house, but I am familiar with the family living curriculum and this would be a great benefit. Knowing the proper steps to buy a house can build or destroy the self-efficacy talk that one may have with oneself. Self-Efficacy Theory describes motivation as being largely governed by self-belief of capability (Bandura, 1993, p. 130). Buying a house is one of the biggest purchases most of us will make. Thank you for these steps.

    Bandura, A. (1993). Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning. Educational Psychologist, 28(2), 117-148. Retrieved from https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Bandura/Bandura1993EP.pdf

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. C SchulApril 14, 2019 at 9:54 PM

      Thanks for the feedback and stopping by!! I agree that it is important to have all of the information together before moving forward on purchasing a home. If these are lesson plans that can be used by a curriculum out there, they can use them. I created them with the intention of doing this class on line initially or I could do it in person.

      Colleen

      Delete

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