Learning Outcome 1
Demonstrate technical and scientific oral and written communication skills through the use of current and emerging technologies to enhance the practice and delivery of nutrition care in a professional and ethical manner.
Artifacts:
Artifact 1 – NUTR6002 – Supervised Practice I – Jeatwell Evaluation
Artifact 2 – NUTR6003 – Supervised Practice II - Harvest of the Month Community Rotation Evaluation
Reflection:
We live in a world with new technologies popping up on a daily basis. Staying up-to-date with emerging technology platforms can make nutrition care more accessible to the population.
Over winter break last year, I had the opportunity to see exactly how this worked. I participated in a community rotation with Judy Wolfe, the founder of Jeatwell.com, a free online tool that allows a user to search for healthier meal choices when dining out. Its database includes restaurants throughout the United States, which caters to the busy traveler or businessperson. The site is unique because it supports a variety of special diets from calorie-reduced to gluten-free to low sodium to vegetarian.
While Jeatwell.com was a great concept, Judy had a full-time job outside of Jeatwell.com and did not have time to properly market the site, so not many people were aware it existed. To help Judy increase awareness, I created a Twitter account for Jeatwell.com and a monthly content calendar that included examples of content categories and specific tweets she could send to her audience throughout the year. I also developed a Twitter “how-to” guide for Judy since she was new to social media and found it intimidating. I reviewed a list of Judy’s contacts and recommended people she may be interested in following on Twitter. This was important because following and interacting with people already on social networks is the best way to build an audience of your own.
There are many ethical considerations in the social media world. It is critical to be authentic and not misrepresent yourself. Judy and I discussed the importance of being transparent in her tweets to let her audience know if the message is coming from her, or from an intern. Additionally, as Judy seeks new restaurants to include on Jeatwell.com it is essential to keep ethics in mind. Companies often use social media as a platform for giveaways. If a restaurant sends Judy a gift certificate or other “freebee” it would not be ethical for Judy to favor that restaurant in her search results on Jeatwell.com or feature that restaurant on her blog unless she fully discloses the gift she has received.
I also created five direct mail postcard designs using Adobe InDesign targeted to area dietitians. The postcard was designed to generate awareness for Jeatwell.com and let area RDs know about the site so that they could recommend this free resource to their clients. Our hope was to raise awareness and inspire word of mouth advertising, which can often be very valuable.
Working with Judy was rewarding for me because I was able to help break her into the world of social media and get the word out about her site. Additionally, the more people Judy is able to reach with the site, the more people will be able to make educated meal selections using her tool.
As Jeatwell was a side-project for Judy, I can understand that she didn’t have a great deal of time to dedicate towards social media and she stopped posting on Twitter at the end of May. Even though she is no longer tweeting, the experience I had working with Judy provided valuable insights regarding how social channels can be leveraged in my future career.
I believe social media can play an important role when it comes to nutrition care, as it will allow those in the field to share important news and updates, address questions and concerns from clients, and clear up misinformation regarding nutritional claims and rumors. Additionally, I see social media as a powerful networking tool that allows dietitians and nutritionists to learn from each other, constantly improve and connect with existing and future clients.
In addition to working with Judy and Jeatwell.com, I authored six Harvest of the Month blog posts for dietitian Lesley Baradel’s website, balancednutritionatlanta.com. Harvest of the Month is a monthly blog feature that highlights seasonal fruits and vegetables. The posts teach readers about the history and origin of seasonal crops, as well as provide nutrition, planting and harvesting information. Each post also includes a nutritious recipe that features the Harvest of the Month so the reader can try it for him or herself and learn the benefits first hand.
Ethics is also a concern in the blogging space. Plagiarism can be a problem in blogging. I made sure to cite all of the sources and pictures I used in my blog posts for Lesley. This allows her readers to visit the sources and judge the trustworthiness of each one for themselves.
This experience allowed me to strengthen my writing and learn more about seasonal fruits and vegetables. As a result, I will be better able to advise future clients on local and seasonal produce and hopefully encourage them to try something new while supporting local agriculture in the process.
I believe blogging is an important emerging technology to embrace because it is a free way to communicate and inform an audience using longer-form posts, which isn’t available through Twitter. Additionally, blogging allows people to find content through search engines, which will help build credibility and attract new clients.
Artifacts:
Artifact 1 – NUTR6002 – Supervised Practice I – Jeatwell Evaluation
Artifact 2 – NUTR6003 – Supervised Practice II - Harvest of the Month Community Rotation Evaluation
Reflection:
We live in a world with new technologies popping up on a daily basis. Staying up-to-date with emerging technology platforms can make nutrition care more accessible to the population.
Over winter break last year, I had the opportunity to see exactly how this worked. I participated in a community rotation with Judy Wolfe, the founder of Jeatwell.com, a free online tool that allows a user to search for healthier meal choices when dining out. Its database includes restaurants throughout the United States, which caters to the busy traveler or businessperson. The site is unique because it supports a variety of special diets from calorie-reduced to gluten-free to low sodium to vegetarian.
While Jeatwell.com was a great concept, Judy had a full-time job outside of Jeatwell.com and did not have time to properly market the site, so not many people were aware it existed. To help Judy increase awareness, I created a Twitter account for Jeatwell.com and a monthly content calendar that included examples of content categories and specific tweets she could send to her audience throughout the year. I also developed a Twitter “how-to” guide for Judy since she was new to social media and found it intimidating. I reviewed a list of Judy’s contacts and recommended people she may be interested in following on Twitter. This was important because following and interacting with people already on social networks is the best way to build an audience of your own.
There are many ethical considerations in the social media world. It is critical to be authentic and not misrepresent yourself. Judy and I discussed the importance of being transparent in her tweets to let her audience know if the message is coming from her, or from an intern. Additionally, as Judy seeks new restaurants to include on Jeatwell.com it is essential to keep ethics in mind. Companies often use social media as a platform for giveaways. If a restaurant sends Judy a gift certificate or other “freebee” it would not be ethical for Judy to favor that restaurant in her search results on Jeatwell.com or feature that restaurant on her blog unless she fully discloses the gift she has received.
I also created five direct mail postcard designs using Adobe InDesign targeted to area dietitians. The postcard was designed to generate awareness for Jeatwell.com and let area RDs know about the site so that they could recommend this free resource to their clients. Our hope was to raise awareness and inspire word of mouth advertising, which can often be very valuable.
Working with Judy was rewarding for me because I was able to help break her into the world of social media and get the word out about her site. Additionally, the more people Judy is able to reach with the site, the more people will be able to make educated meal selections using her tool.
As Jeatwell was a side-project for Judy, I can understand that she didn’t have a great deal of time to dedicate towards social media and she stopped posting on Twitter at the end of May. Even though she is no longer tweeting, the experience I had working with Judy provided valuable insights regarding how social channels can be leveraged in my future career.
I believe social media can play an important role when it comes to nutrition care, as it will allow those in the field to share important news and updates, address questions and concerns from clients, and clear up misinformation regarding nutritional claims and rumors. Additionally, I see social media as a powerful networking tool that allows dietitians and nutritionists to learn from each other, constantly improve and connect with existing and future clients.
In addition to working with Judy and Jeatwell.com, I authored six Harvest of the Month blog posts for dietitian Lesley Baradel’s website, balancednutritionatlanta.com. Harvest of the Month is a monthly blog feature that highlights seasonal fruits and vegetables. The posts teach readers about the history and origin of seasonal crops, as well as provide nutrition, planting and harvesting information. Each post also includes a nutritious recipe that features the Harvest of the Month so the reader can try it for him or herself and learn the benefits first hand.
Ethics is also a concern in the blogging space. Plagiarism can be a problem in blogging. I made sure to cite all of the sources and pictures I used in my blog posts for Lesley. This allows her readers to visit the sources and judge the trustworthiness of each one for themselves.
This experience allowed me to strengthen my writing and learn more about seasonal fruits and vegetables. As a result, I will be better able to advise future clients on local and seasonal produce and hopefully encourage them to try something new while supporting local agriculture in the process.
I believe blogging is an important emerging technology to embrace because it is a free way to communicate and inform an audience using longer-form posts, which isn’t available through Twitter. Additionally, blogging allows people to find content through search engines, which will help build credibility and attract new clients.