TEBlog

A little later than planned, but here is some more student work from my Health Communication Seminar. Joy Waddell developed a website aimed at educating South African high school students (between the ages of 14 and 18) on HIV/AIDS and certain related topics. You can check it out at http://www.killjoyonline.com/hiv_home.htm and click more (below) to read her project summary. What's most interesting here is her approach - a combination of academic and "on the ground" formative research. Of course, as she admits, the major weakness is the lack of summative evaluation. But a project like this raises the importance of 1) consulting the target audience and drawing on their existing knowledge; and 2) the possibility of using new technologies to reach youth with social messages. Here, the obvious critique is the question of access, in this case mitigated by the fact that youth can log on at school. This kind of assignment was useful for me on a number of levels: 1) Taking the student out of the classroom to interact with real "subjects" and see them as "real people"; producing something potentially useful; and using the student's personal/professional interests (in this case web design) to explore issues around HIV/AIDS.For the Health Communications final project, I decided to develop a website aimed at educating South African high school students (between the ages of 14 and 18) on HIV/AIDS and certain related topics. The reason why I decided to go this route, was namely because of the general lack of educational websites dealing with HIV/AIDS; which are not only informative but stimulate the interest of teenagers. More specifically, I feel that there is an even greater lack of educative HIV/AIDS websites aimed primarily at South African students. For the purposes of this project, I decided to narrow the target audience down even further to high school students in Cape Town. As background research, I surfed the internet for various websites on HIV/AIDS. Whilst looking at some of these sites, I felt that there was a general lack when it came to websites aimed specifically at high school students. A lot of the material available was complicated, long-winded, boring and/or inaccessible. In my initial proposal for this project, I named 5 different websites and outlined their weaknesses or strengths. In short, these websites were either aimed at a specifically American audience, completely dull and long-winded or simply a complication of different links to other sites and academic-type files and documents. The one website which did impress me was the Kids Health website [available: 20th April 2007] (http://www.kidshealth.org/kid/health_problems/infection/hiv.html). This website was very colourful, interactive and had many informative qualities. The information provided was explained in a way that children between the ages of 10 and 16 would be able to understand. For High School kids in the township schools of Cape Town, this is important because English is not their first language and long medical explanations would be lost on them. The only problem that I did have with this website was that it was not aimed specifically at providing HIV/AIDS information and therefore only gave a broad sweep of the issues at hand. As legwork towards the project, I also decided to carry out a small survey amongst some students that I have regular access to at Intsebenziswano High School in the informal settlement of Philippi, Cape Town. I wanted to get a general feel for what topics around HIV/AIDS these students are curious about and what type of questions they would like to see answered. Their questions and issues helped me to plan my website and tackle the ‘right’ issues. One of my primary aims of the website is to answer some of the questions that students are too shy to ask in public. The website would therefore provide a ‘safe’ and ‘non-judgemental’ space for students to explore the issue of HIV/AIDS and some of its related topics. Examples provided by the students include HIV prevention, the connection between HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, whether there is a cure to HIV/AIDS and who is most at danger from getting HIV/AIDS. Other related topics I would like to include in the website are, for example, drugs, teenage pregnancy, STDs, condoms and substance abuse. I really wanted the website to provide the space for students to learn about HIV/AIDS and to have some of their questions answered. The website is supposed to be colourful, interactive and simple so that these students will be able to navigate themselves around it with ease and enthusiasm. I also aimed to keep the English and the information simple so that these students, who generally struggle with English at school, can easily understand what it is all about. I managed to get into contact with HEART; a SHAWCO project at UCT. They were able to provide me with some of their HIV/AIDS manuals and information which they use at various high schools in Khayelitsha informal settlement. By following these manuals, I was able to ensure that my information was not only correct, but that I was staying focused on the types of HIV/AIDS and sexuality issues which High School students should deal with. Whilst developing the website, I came across certain logistical and personal issues upon which I had to make certain decisions. In terms of layout, this revolved primarily around colour schemes, images and how to keep the attention of the students, but not at the cost of getting important information across. I decided that the best way to get the information across was to “answer” certain questions that I felt students might have. The students surfing the website would then be able to browse to the topic of their interest and scan through the “questions” that need answering. In other words, the students could choose what they wanted to know and focus on certain aspects each time they go online or access the website. The website would ultimately be available as a resource. If students wanted to know even more or to get in contact with anyone about HIV/AIDS or other related issues, the links page would hopefully lead them there. In terms of colour schemes, I decided to keep it simple. Rather than flooding the website with lots of bright colours, I wanted to keep it somewhat sophisticated. Since I am aiming the website more at High School students, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t confuse them with the colours or make them feel like they are surfing a children’s page rather than a serious, educational website. With regards to pictures, I made the careful decision to limit putting up lots of photos. This was based on the fact that I would need copyright permissions for photos downloaded off the internet (the easiest place to find pictures), or I would have to source my own photos. The pictures that are on the site were taken by myself and edited on certain photo-editing programs. There was also a lot of extra information provided in the HIV/AIDS manuals that I used to gather my information. I decided to leave a lot of it out for several reasons. Firstly, I felt that I was already bordering on the “information overload” side of things in terms of what was already included on the website. The other reason is that I wanted to focus more on particular topics such as HIV basics, AIDS, condoms and HIV prevention. The manuals included information on puberty, reproduction and ways that teenagers can and do explore their sexuality. I felt that although some of these topics are closely related to HIV/AIDS, they did not have to be dealt with on this specific website. For that reason, I also included links to other websites which could provide more information on relationships and sexuality. All websites are generally a work in progress and this website is definitely not the exception to the rule. I was unfortunately not able to let the students that I ran the first survey with, to give me feedback on the website. This would have been an interesting task to carry out because it would have helped me tailor the website even more to suit their needs and to answer their questions. This website would have also benefited if I was able to create a forum where students could post their comments, questions or discussions. In this way, the website would have become even more interactive and the students would have been able to become even more involved and feel like their issues are being addressed. These are just some of the ways in which this website could potentially improve and expand into.