Example Of What Information Has The Respondent Found Bout Social Media And What Does She Want From It? Report

Information Consultant's Report - Interim Report

1.0 The respondent’s summary
An interview was carried out with the respondent who was a teacher in an attempt to get information relating to what the respondent wants concerning the social media. The respondent was interested in knowing the effect of social media to teaching methods used in class. The respondent is new to the internet social media. However, she has made some observation from her colleagues and found that they were always on twitter, sharing things and thoughts. She has also observed what her colleagues had done including what is working and what is not working with them as far as internet social media id concerned.
The respondent, that is the teacher, reported that she accepts the social media but wanted to know how she could use it to obtain information update about her search practice. She further states that any type of information given to her from the social media will be very great to her but was not specific on the type of information itself. On trying to interview her further on the preferred type of information she would want by giving her some examples, she agreed that she would be interested in such information to do with communicating with her colleagues outside school. The respondent further wanted to know if there is any positive or negative impact of using social media in her life, in her teaching like the case of using social media in the classroom.
The respondent prefers any type of connection with her pairs online but wants to be confident with the quality of information she needs. She would like to use the social media to connect with the fellow teachers as she also maintains that she wants her privacy be safeguarded by the social media and thus do not want her students to get involved with the social media. The respondent is interested in using the current platform which is used popularly by the majority of users. She wants to get updated with the practice of using social media and teaching. She particularly states that she wants to know how to use twitter which she is very unfamiliar with. She mainly wants to know the impact of social media in personal life and as a teacher without including students she teaches.
2. Objectives of the search
The search objectives will be met by carrying out research from different sources, mainly peer articles and journals from the internet academic library. Wikipedia and other related sites will not be used for credibility purposes of information to be gathered. The following are the objectives that will have to be met by this research in order to meet all the need of the respondent as mentioned in the respondent’s summary above.
Whether the respondent is interested in what effect social media has had on teaching method as a posture and how to use social media in class room.

What does the respondent want to use social media for in her classes and what general objective does she want to meet with it?
Does the respondent have any specific type of information in social media? What will be the impacts of social media in the life of respondent?

What connection would the respondent prefer to do with her pairs online or face to face?

Does the respondent have any concerns about her privacy in using social media?
Is the respondent interested in using specific platform such as Facebook or Google?
3.0 Search Criteria or strategy
The overall search is carried out using scholar.Google.com that consists of all academic journals and articles including other relevant books. However, the search has been limited to the use of only peer articles and journals. The key words or topics were used to search for the relevant academic articles or journals which are first of all filtered according to the year of publication. The relevant journal or article is then selected depending on which one out of the ones displayed on the screen meets the requirements of the words or topic that was typed in the scholar Google search engine.
4.0 Results of the search
4.1 Objective A.
Concerning the first objective, the respondent who is the teacher is interested in knowing what effect social media has had on teaching method. In this case, the teaching method or strategy can be conducted without the use of formal teaching and dynamics that permits the teacher to have the responsibility of a facilitator or total absenteeism from the learning process. The learning event in this case involves active participation of individuals who have resources in communication with others instead of the transfer of knowledge from the teacher to the students. Since the teacher do not want to use the social media in class with students, she can use it to take part in discussion with other colleague teachers on what is to be taught about a given subject or topic. The discussion process can help the teacher to filter the most important information which she can later use to formally teach students through informal method (Kop, 2011, Chen & Bryer, 2012).
4.2 Objective B.
The only information the respondent had initially was the observation that her colleagues were sharing some information and thoughts using social media through twitter and therefore did not have any specific information about the information shared through social media. As a result, the respondent as a teacher may share academic materials with her colleagues and for informal learning which her as a teacher can facilitate and integrate into formal learning environment. In addition, she can also share other general and personal information with her colleagues outside the context of teaching by just charting online through twitter (Chen & Bryer, 2012, White, Castleden & Gruzd, 2014).
4.3 Objective C.
The respondent in this case wants to use social media to update her research practice. The research in this case recommends the teacher to use Google search for research practice. If she wants to participate in research through discussion with colleagues, then she can use twitter or Facebook to facilitate the discussion between or among researchers o with common interest. This will allow the teacher to get access to fresh information which is suitable for the update of research practice. Nevertheless, the use of twitter does not guarantee full information security since it can be accessed by nearly everyone (White, Castleden & Gruzd, 2014).
4.4 Objective D.
Initially, the respondent appeared not to have a specific type of information in social media. After further clarification, she was specific by wanting to be sure about the community outside the school that she could share information and thoughts with. To meet this objective, the respondent can also share information and thoughts by means of twitters and Face books but with limited security of personal information. The use of social media will have apositive impact in her life in that she will be able to get exposed online where she will be able to interact with her colleagues at anytime and anywhere irrespective of the geographical separation. However, the use of social media will also have a negative impact which has something to do with internet and computer addiction and celebrity which may in turn have a negative effect on her health (White, Castleden & Gruzd, 2014, Leung, 2014).
4.5 Objective E.
The respondent initially stated that she would prefer to have any type of connection. In this case, wireless or wired connection can be used to get access to the social media through internet. Nevertheless, wired connection may not be very convenient to be used at anytime and at anywhere by users although it is more reliable in terms of signal transmission strength. Wireless is more convenient because an individual is not limited on where to be in order to be online. On the other hand, wired or guided connection is preferred for quality of information given that it is characterized by minimal transmission errors as compared to wireless which is highly affected by transmission impairments (Oyman & Singh, 2012).
4.6 Objective F
The responded did state initially that she has concerns about privacy of her information. In this case, the security may not be an issue as such if the teacher is to use social media to share information with other fellow teachers online since they will be having common interest in the information they share. However, if in case she has some confidential information to hide from the colleagues, the use of twitter as she wants will have limited security as mentioned earlier.
4.7 Objective G.
The respondent stated that she is not interested in using a specific platform such as Facebook or Google but wants to use what is commonly used as at present by many. However, she seems very much interested in knowing how to use twitter which many of her colleagues are using to share information and thoughts. In fact, using twitter for her case is recommended because she wants to get updated with the practice of using social media and teaching. To use the twitter, she will need to create an email address first. She can then use this email address to create an account with twitter by following instruction on the computer screen while online. But one also needs to be computer literate before you can proceed to create an email address, twitter account and participate in social media interaction.

References

Kop, R. (2011). The challenges to connectivist learning on open online networks: Learning experiences during a massive open online course. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 12(3), 19-38.
Chen, B., & Bryer, T. (2012). Investigating instructional strategies for using social media in formal and informal learning. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 13(1), 87-104.
White, B., Castleden, H., & Gruzd, A. (2014). Talking to Twitter users: Motivations behind Twitter use on the Alberta oil sands and the Northern Gateway Pipeline. First Monday, 20(1).
White, B., Castleden, H., & Gruzd, A. (2014). Talking to Twitter users: Motivations behind Twitter use on the Alberta oil sands and the Northern Gateway Pipeline. First Monday, 20(1).
Leung, L. (2014). Predicting Internet risks: a longitudinal panel study of gratifications-sought, Internet addiction symptoms, and social media use among children and adolescents. Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine: an Open Access Journal, 2(1), 424-439.
Oyman, O., & Singh, S. (2012). Quality of experience for HTTP adaptive streaming services. Communications Magazine, IEEE, 50(4), 20-27.