MEDINAT: educational software for teaching Herbal and Folk Medicine

Abstract

Background: Herbal and Folk Medicine is a wide profile specialty, with a scientific, unique and holistic approach, which uses methods, techniques and procedures for health promotion, disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation, with medical based systems in folk and Herbal , ancestral or modern methods.
Objective: to design educational software for learning Herbal and Folk Medicine in students of medical sciences.
Methods: a research on technological development and innovation was carried out during the 2017-2018 academic year, at Santiago de Cuba Faculty of Medicine School1. Theoretical methods were used: historical-logical, analysis-synthesis and systemic-structural; empirical ones data collection, product evaluation by specialists and users and descriptive statistics.
Results: the documentary analysis facilitated the selection of the contents according to the objectives set for the preparation of the software; four stages were taken into account in its design, Crheasoft version 3.0 was selected for its creation and Adobe Photoshop 10 was used to edit the images. In its structure it contains list of contents, media library, complementary exercises and glossary.
Conclusions: it was evaluated as adequate by specialists and good by users according to the technical, psycho pedagogical and communicational aspects, which demonstrates its quality and relevance also demonstrated in the effectiveness of learning achieved with its application.