Many public school employees are never asked to interact with a child who has diabetes but some may find themselves confronted with a situation involving a diabetic child. Training in pediatric diabetes for public school employees is time intensive for the trainers and difficult to refresh when the need arises. This research project evaluates a Web-based training system about juvenile diabetes for school employees. Co-investigator on this research project is Dr. D. Radjenovic (Department of Nursing, UNF).

Pilot work for this project has been completed. A training system was developed in HTML using text, sound, and video. System material was based on the material currently used by diabetes trainers. To evaluate the research system, one group of education majors was given the research system and one group of education majors was given a text version of the material. A diabetes knowledge test, based on a current instrument to evaluate diabetes information, was given to both groups. The group that used the research system scored significantly higher than the group that used the text material.

Issues that impact successful computer based training were noted during the pilot work. These issues are being studied to make the research system more effective. Additional work is being done to make the most effective use of distant computer-based training instead of just automating a text-based system.

A paper based on this research has been presented at N. A. Web '96: Educational Opportunities on the WWW in New Brunswick, Canada.

We presented a poster at the 1997 Conference of the American Association of Diabetes Educators. We also presented a poster at the 2000 International Symposium on Computer and Diabetes Care about how teachers have trouble finding appropriate diabetes information on the Web.

Another study has been completed comparing VCR-based information presentation and the HTML-based presentation system. The results suggested that the HTML-based was more effective than the VCR-based system since the HTML group scored significantly higher on the diabetes knowledge test. This study is in preparation for publication. Other papers are under construction.

A grant proposal titled The Virtual Diabetes Educator: Online Interactive Health-Related Education for School Teachers has been submitted to the Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program of the U.S. Department of Commerce. If funded, this research project would be extended, thoroughly tested and evaluated, and put into production.