How can a computer be used to communicate?

Computer communication applications such as electronic mail and the internet are changing the field of education. However, the use of these applications is just emerging in nutrition education. Because computer technology has been reported to enhance the learning of college students, it is important to identify new strategies to incorporate this medium into the classroom.

The use of a computer communication application called an internet newsgroup, described as an electronic bulletin board, was implemented in a large college-level introductory nutrition course for the fall semester of 1997. The goal was for this communication technology to increase student discussion and participation in the larger sections of this course offered at the university.

Four-hundred and forty college students enrolled in 2 sections of the introductory nutrition course were required to send messages weekly for 5 weeks to their assigned newsgroup asking a nutritionally relevant question of interest to them. Students were also required to complete 4 Internet based assignments, in which they were asked to find nutrition related articles or pages on the Internet, evaluate the credibility of the information, and report their findings to the newsgroups. There were a total of nine newsgroups for the students enrolled in the course, with each newsgroup having a senior dietetics major serving as a mentor to answer the questions sent by students.

The implementation of this communication technology may serve to enhance the learning of college students enrolled in a nutrition course by providing them with answers to their nutrition questions and by allowing them to explore nutrition information available on the Internet. This also allows nutrition educators to incorporate computer communication technology into the classroom.