Information technology in nutrition and dietetic education

Abstract

The increase in pressures of teaching in tertiary education has led to a need to consider new methods to support the learning experience for students; for example, in a single faculty of a university, a survey has shown that there were 173 different innovations in teaching methods that were being tried and 14% of these involved information technology (Ellington & McIntosh, 1995). Since the development of the computer, it has become a growing influence on the workplace for nutritionists and dietitians, so clearly information technology has been incorporated into the teaching programme as a subject. In addition to these more obvious uses of computers by professionals, computers can also be used to help in the teaching of non-computingrelated subjects. While teachers of nutrition may be pleased to allow computing staff to develop separate units for information technology, few may themselves consider the application of information technology in the support of their own teaching. I have developed several different approaches that illustrate the range of possible uses of computers as aids to teaching; I incorporated all of them into the teaching of second year Nutrition and Dietetics students.A search of the education literature from 1976 to 1997 failed to find any study in which a wide range of information technology was employed at the same time in the support of teaching; there are, however, many reports of individual programs and their evaluation in a wide range of subjects, including nutrition (Kolasa & Miller, 1996). Thus, at the end of the year, before examinations, students were asked to complete a questionnaire about information technology; each question was made in the form of a statement with potential scores 1-7 from one extreme idea to the opposite, for example disagreement to agreement (this type of evaluation is known as the illuminative model; see Knussen et al. 1991). Each program was evaluated by students in terms of simplicity of use and the extent to which it helped them. Other questions were asked about whether timetabled hours should increase and about use of the programs outside classes. There were also general questions relating to the use of information technology and the students' attitudes to computers. The scores for all the questions regarding the simplicity of use were summated, as were those asking about how helpful the programs had been. These data were used in Spearman's correlation analysis of the results. There was a high response rate from students (thirty-one completed from thirty-two students). The questions asked and the results obtained are shown in Table 1, and discussed in relation to each program, and then as general conclusions. Dietary program'Diet5 for Windows'

Information and communication technology in nutrition and dietetic education

“…Specifically, in the past 2 years an increase in the processing capacity of PCs (internal memory and processor speed) has unleashed new opportunities for educational applications (Martens, 1998). Thus, next to the increase in pressures of teaching in tertiary education, as pointed out by Wise (1998) in this issue, there may be some different reasons to include information and communication technology (ICT; we prefer to include the communication aspect in this technology as well) in tertiary education. Wise (1998) incorporates the use of information technology (IT) into direct teaching of second year Nutrition and Dietetics students.…”

“…Thus, next to the increase in pressures of teaching in tertiary education, as pointed out by Wise (1998) in this issue, there may be some different reasons to include information and communication technology (ICT; we prefer to include the communication aspect in this technology as well) in tertiary education. Wise (1998) incorporates the use of information technology (IT) into direct teaching of second year Nutrition and Dietetics students. From the evaluation the author presents we learn that the aims to include IT were efficiency (timetabled hours, program use outside classes), efficacy (support of understanding the subject), and satisfaction (simplicity of use, students' attitude towards computers).…”

Interactive learning aided by JavaScript

“…This enhances the enjoyment of the students in completing the crossword puzzles whilst encouraging them to revise using other puzzles outside of timetabled hours. A version of the crossword puzzle written in 'Visual Basic' has been evaluated and was highly rated by students (Wise, 1998 of JavaScript. Readers may wish to compare the JavaScript educational crossword with a commercial one (http://www.mirror.co.uk/crossword/index.html), which is written in Java and allows you to type any letter into the blank squares, even if it is wrong.…”

“…When students select the correct answer, an explanation of the reason is displayed to reinforce their knowledge. Students need to build a mind-map of the nutritional composition of foods and this is a useful method when combined with the use of a nutritional analysis program (Wise, 1998). Figure 6 shows a crossword puzzle developed using JavaScript that is used for revision; an example can be tried on the Internet (http://www.rgu.ac.uk/subj/fcs/diets.htm).…”

“…In recent years, the use of information technology to support learning in nutrition education has moved from mainframe-based programs to PC and Internet-based systems (Wise, 1986(Wise, ,1998. Many lecturers are now exploring the use of the Internet and Intranets for education and this adds a new potential method for providing support to students.…”