As these Web pages demonstrate, the approach that we have adopted avoids the need for access to multiple computers in the diabetes clinic (which was seen as a major hurdle to running such a study), and makes use instead of small group lessons. Although this is more labour intensive for the diabetes educator / clinician / diabetes specialist nurse who is actually running the lessons, this approach only requires one computer to be available.

In this respect, a novel aspect of this research is the fact that the participants do not interact directly with the computer – rather the teacher serves as a ‘wizard’ (or facilitator) undertaking all interactions with the computer. This helps circumvent any problems if the participants are not fully computer-literate or confident to use a computer themselves. Connected with this, a perceived limitation of the current version of the AIDA software (v4.3) is that it is DOS-based and therefore does not make use of a standard, Windows graphical user interface. Given this – provided the teacher is fully conversant with use of the software – the ‘wizard’ approach should help to avoid any ‘learning curve’ effect where it takes the study participants a number of lessons simply to become fully familiar with the program's functions. Furthermore using a ‘wizard’ approach can reduce any language difficulties as the software is written in English, while in the pilot study the participants' mother-language was Italian. In this respect, where required, the ‘wizard’ may also serve as a translator.

For all simulation lessons two computer screens are made available – linked to the same personal computer – ensuring that all study participants have a good view of the computer display.

Fig. 3 - The teacher (P.T.) with a group of subjects following a lesson.

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AIDA is a freeware diabetes software simulator program of glucose-insulin action + insulin dose & diet adjustment in diabetes mellitus. It is intended purely for education, self-learning and / or teaching use. It is not meant for individual blood glucose prediction or therapy planning. Caveats

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This Web page was last updated on 31st December, 2000.

(c) www.2aida.org, 2000. All rights reserved. Disclaimer. For the AIDA US Mirror Site, please click here. For the Diabetes / Insulin Tutorial, please click here.