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Lesson Two

Health and Wellness Literacy
http://lone-eagles.com/academy2.htm

Welcome to Lesson Two!

View this five minute video capture overview of this lesson.

(Click the link - it might take a minute to download.)

         Each lesson recommends four half-hour sessions (per week)

              VIEW some excellent short videos online.
 
              EXPLORE some outstanding websites for ideas on what you can do

              SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS - Send an email to everyone in the class

              READ Or LISTEN TO:
                             Short articles with ideas on trends and opportunities
                             Mac users have a Text to Speech feature to read documents aloud.  
                             ((highlight the text first)) Select Finder, Services, Speech, Start Speaking Text)

Lesson Goals

We’ll address opportunities for true happiness and wellness, and taking
control of your own happiness, health and destiny.

1.      Self-assessment of our lifestyles, info-diets, and beliefs about ourselves, and our potential

2.      Taking responsibility for developing for one’s own goals and directions,

3.      Identifying one’s core cultural values, and how we treat others

4.      Review online health sites, and workforce related priority issues

5.      Optional Skillbuilder:  Learn about wikis, and how to insert videos on wiki web pages.

Introduction:

Health information is the most common search topic on the Internet. Health careers is one of the fastest growing areas for new jobs. 

Start a List of Your New Web Sites, IDs and Passwords

There are lots of free web tools being used to create sites to share baby photos, disease specific support group collaboration, managing one’s personal medical records and more. Most of these sites work much the same way. You give yourself an ID (usually just your email address) and a password, and you can set the site to be public or private only to those you approve.  Many of the tools we’ll be exploring in this class work this same way SO start a list of the site web addresses, your IDs and your Passwords.

Taking Control of Your Own Health and Happiness

Your personal health is your most important component for happiness. The U.S. Constitution assures our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Taking responsibility for the life choices we make, to control our own destiny, is perhaps the most important skill we can develop. While physical health is indeed vitally important, our mental health and attitudes are fundamental to our core being.

We can look around and see too many people who play the victim and make excuses for their self-destructive life choices. Wellness and prevention of health problems through education and wise lifestyle choices is a booming area of creative activity. Tele-counseling is also a booming area of innovation, particularly in remote Alaskan villages. Behavioral counselors can interact face-to-face via 2-way video with those in the villages needing help fighting their self-destructive lifestyle choices. 

FYI, www.skype.com is a free 2 way video program.  (OPTIONAL, but fun) Download and let’s test it, my skype ID is frankodasz but I need to know when to expect your call. Mornings are best for me. We can do a practice interview for your new job teaching online.

Creating a New Digital Culture

Culture is our means of creating individual and group identity and meaning. New digital cultures are being created along with an emerging global culture and sense of global citizenship where appreciate and tolerance for difference cultures and worldviews is becoming understood as necessary as we are all part of the one human family. Combining caring and connectivity with common sense – makes sense. We can now encourage, mentor, and help educate anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Alaskan youth suicide is many times higher than the national average. Youth need to understand that they do indeed have many opportunities for a happy life, even in a world of accelerating change. How we mentally frame our personal self-image and opportunities for success is very much one of how we choose to look at things. 

Throughout this lesson, think about how your online activities can bring encouragement and HOPE to those who really could use your support. Social networking has a lot to do with establishing a peer group for essential social support, particularly for the first digital generation in history. There is nothing sadder than a young life full of potential lost to hopelessness.

Freaky Rats

As you may know, research has been conducted wiring electrodes to the pleasure centers in the brains of rats such that they will push a button to receive pleasure to the point they will not even eat, and will die. This is the same as meth addictions, isn’t it?  Meth burns out the connections between brain cells so one cannot feel content and happy without more and more meth. The great risk is not knowing this can happen until it is too late.

Did you know one in ten youth in China are addicted to the Internet games like World of Warcraft? They have special camps for these youth in China who spend 10-12 hours a day playing games on the Internet.  One in ten Internet users are also addicted to Internet pornography.

Moderation in all things is good advice

Balance in our lifestyle choices is necessary for wellness. Too much of anything can be considered an addiction. But, you can be addicted to exercise, to get the good feelings from brain hormones that result, and isn’t this a good addiction? Or addicted to helping others for the satisfaction it brings? Perhaps “addiction” is the wrong term, but the words we choose to use are often important.

The Thinkquest competition gives cash prizes to youth and teachers from all over the world who compete creating instructional web sites collaborating with peers in other countries, here is one example:

Mind Prison: Internet Addiction Disorder

Spending too much time online is something that currently affects many people and families.  This website is great for teaching students about what Internet addiction is, signs to look for, and what to do about it.  I see early warning signs in many of my students (particularly the middle schoolers who take their school laptops home in the evenings).  I have had parents find their students hiding under their blankets with their laptops at night to play online games, lie to their parents saying they were doing homework when they were really spending hours chatting with friends, etc. 

I want to make sure students know that this can become a problem, and it is something they need to be aware of and monitor.  There is a self-assessment quiz at this website that I think will be really helpful in allowing the students to privately take a look at how they are doing.  http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/02049/home.htm

What is YOUR Info-Diet? You ARE what you feed your head?

You have perhaps heard “You are what you eat?” And physically this makes sense. You ARE what you know and think, mentally, depending on what you feed your mind. And the mind is like a muscle. You can let it go flabby, or muscle it up. Your Choices are Important. They determine what you will become.  Becoming is superior to being. True or False?

         Please do the following short activity:

Info-Diet Self-assessment Survey

http://lone-eagles.com/academy-info-diet.htm

Email your instructor your responses to this simple survey.

          SHARE your Info-Diet survey in the Google Groups discussion area if you are OK doing so. (Optional)
          Respond to the postings of the others in this class with your thoughts.

EXPLORE These Exceptional Web Health Portals

Personal and Family Health Care Web Tour
http://lone-eagles.com/webtour2.htm 

Other web tours are at http://lone-eagles.com/webtours.htm 

Alaskan Youth and Families Network
http://www.ayfn.org

Here are two of the newest Health resources web site “portals” where you can maintain your personal health records.

Microsoft’s Health Vault, www.healthvault.com and

Google’s new health resource, www.google.com/health   

Building Your Searching Skills: (Optional)
You can, of course, search Google and other search engines for lots more great health sites and the more keywords you put in your search phrases, the faster you will find exactly what you are looking for. Learn more on advanced searching by clicking on Google’s Advanced Search link or by exploring the online lesson at (optional)  

Level One - Searching and Browsing Skills  (The Power of a Self-Directed Learner)
 http://lone-eagles.com/ecommerce-search.htm  

Videos can be a great way to educate
The following three videos were found at www.youtube.com with a search for Alaskan Native Health. View these short videos and see how many additional videos are displayed on the right side of the web page. Practice searching for specific types of health topic videos to see what more you can discover. Note that there is “embedded code” in a box to the right of each Youtube video which allows you to cut and paste this code on other web pages, such as wikis and blogs. You will practice embedding code on a wiki page for this lesson as instructed below.

VIEW

Alaskan Native Health
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEnMVPqXo7k see other videos listing on right

Alaskan Native Health Best Practices
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QTeaf0K7i8  see other videos listing on right

Healthy Alaskan Natives Foundation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRJnucKVgp0  see other videos listing on right

Go to www.google.com and click on the videos link at the top. Whatever keywords you use to search will only find related videos. You will find thousands of videos from many more sites than just youtube (which is owned by Google.) More video sites and resources are in the Academy Wiki video resources page.

READ:

An Info-Tech Wellness Strategy
for Healthy Alaskan Native and Native American Communities
http://lone-eagles.com/healthyvillage.htm  (two pages)

READ, the Blog post: HOPE
http://loneeagleacademy.com  Scroll down a few postings to find it.

A Proposed Academy Project:

As a group, we could begin to post the best videos and web resources for Alaskan families in the following categories. While showcasing your new skills, think about how many people you could help connect with the very best resources they didn’t even know existed? Share your thoughts on this idea in our Google Groups discussion area. Search for the best health video you can find and see the advanced Skillbuilder task below for how to create your own WIKI web site and how to post any Youtube videos on your custom web pages. Free and Easy.

Alaskan Center for Sustainable Families

Broadband Training and Content Best Practices for Sustainable Families integrating….

1.       JOBS: 21st Century Workforce Jobs Facilitation

2.       ENERGY:   Green Clean Sustainable Lifestyles Education on Alternative Energy Cost-Saving Solutions

3.       HEALTH: Community Wellness Broadband Applications, home-based education, homecare, peer-mentoring

4.       E-LEARNING FOR ALL: Local Mentors: A Virtual Support Network

5.       GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP:  Thinking Globally, Acting Locally. Global Service Learning and International trade.

6.       CULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY: Digital Storytelling and Culture Expression; establishing a global voice.

(See the expanded outline is at http://lone-eagles.com/alaska-center.htm )

The Montana Center for Sustainable Rural Families has been proposed (to MT Senators Baucus and Tester) integrating broadband access to essential information in five key areas: Jobs, Energy, Wellness, E-learning for All, and Global Citizenship. Details at http://lone-eagles.com/excellence.htm and  http://lone-eagles.com/dillon-center.htm

Lesson Feedback: Optional, but much appreciated.

You're invited to privately email your instructor:

       1. What areas, if any, did you have trouble with during this
            lesson?

       2. What questions remain now that you've finished this lesson?

       3. Approximately how much time did you devote to this lesson?

       4. What improvements would you like to suggest?

 Advanced Skillbuilder: Creating a WIKI website and Inserting Youtube Videos:

        http://lone-eagles.com/academy2-advanced.htm