Written by: Val Sowell, Juliet Fink, and Jane Shull
Abstract: In the last decade many HIV and AIDS education and prevention resources have been adapted for use on the Internet in the form of fact sheets, news feeds and educational videos. Despite these online resources, the educational needs of marginalised communities at risk of HIV are still not being met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Many individuals from marginalised communities often lack the digital literacy skills required to engage effectively with the overwhelming and diverse online resources available about HIV education and prevention. To address this problem this paper describes Frontline TEACH—an adaptation of Project TEACH—which combines face-to-face and online education for a population of HIV-negative people who have a need for targeted HIV education. Drawing on our experiences and evaluation results, we argue the Frontline TEACH course design and delivery improved upon existing online HIV education and prevention approaches by integrating Moodle and YouTube to widen community access and participation. We outline recommendations for Open Distance Flexible Learning (ODFL) formats to design innovative digital HIV and AIDS education and prevention for marginalised communities.
Keywords: access, community development, education, HIV and AIDS, Moodle, ODFL, prevention, YouTube