Health Education and Technology Evolution
Health Education concerns a deeply complex subject and yet is often
one of the less formalized compulsory courses in one's formative education.
The engagement over subjects such as nutrition, lifestyle, substance
abuse, sexual behavior and other bio-social concerns is important, but
little in the way of substantive evolution has marked the instruction or
curriculum of health education. However, new computing technologies are
lighting a path to the advancement of the discipline.
Most particularly, access to online stores of knowledge and
information, as well as the availability of sophisticated software designed
to meet the specific demands of the subject are enhancing opportunities in
the field. Indeed, for the instructor, the opportunities which are
presently available to him or her as a product of these technologies are
diverse in nature and providing of a greater arsenal of instruments for
gaining students' attention and gauging individual learning needs. This is
important because the relevance of health education to the student's life
is often undermined by the modest weight placed on the academic relevance
of health education. Thus, using computer simulation programs that incline
students to participate more actively in probing lessons-such as an online
calorie counter that allows a student to monitor personal nutritional
habits-can draw in an otherwise aloof student body. This is to say that
"the computer has become a virtual teaching forum of great flexibility,
with ever-improving technologies allowing for avenues of student use which
"include drill and practice, tutorials, study guides, games and
simulations, inquiry and problem solving, graphics, and word processing and
writing." (Berson, 486) This multitude of applications reflects an
opportunity for a progressive teaching mode, in which these varying
computing tools offer the chance to distill individual learning strengths
and needs unique to health education.

Works Cited:

Berson, M.J. (1996). Effectiveness of Computer Technology in the Social
Studies: A Review of the Literature. Journal of Research on Computing in
Education, 28(4).