Technology in nutrition education currently has limited uses but has impactful potential particularly in nutrition education. Despite the fact that nutrition information is plentiful in the digital world, the approach of dietitians and nutritionists have been to increase presence through blogs, social media, and videos (such as those on YouTube), while the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) set their efforts to instill a code of ethics and information on privacy in the digital workplace. These efforts may help mitigate nutrition misinformation but are often one-sided or engages only limited populations. For example, blogs may allow comments but do not allow for active engagement with the blog topics or doesn’t take into account implementation on a local level. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter allow for nutritionist’s voices to be heard but rarely offer collaborative engagement between other experts, or communities.
The Academy itself recognizes the potential of technology in nutrition and has published a practice paper on nutrition informatics. The Academy discusses the potential pros and cons for each of the various practice fields in dietetics (clinical, food services, education/research, community, consultation/business) and technology’s potential for growth in each of those areas. In education specifically, the Academy recognizes use in distance learning, student progress tracking, speciality testing for licensing and certification, and professional course development. However, it does not mention need for collaboration or engaging various audiences requiring nutrition education.
In order to bridge this gap, this session focuses on building better nutrition education through digital collaboration tools. Digital tools help to provide active nutrition messages that give students/patients more voice and active engagement while also expanding their nutrition communities through online collaboration building agency and limiting nutrition misinformation. The goal of this session is to explore benefits of active learning through technology aides (EdTech) and implement tools into existing lesson plans.