Finally, the Standards

As I suspected, some of the academic standards for health education would apply for my tattoo inquiry.

Indiana has seven basic standards that run through all the grade levels; here are standards 4 and 6:

Students will demonstrate the ability to analyze the influence of family, culture,
peers, community, media, and technology on health and health behaviors.

Students will demonstrate the ability to implement decision making and goal setting
skills to enhance health.

Source: Indiana Academic Standards for Health Education


The examples for the standards change with each grade level. When I originally looked at the standards at the beginning of this inquiry, I still did not know I would end up focusing on health issues, so I selected a standard from high school social science about studying different cultures. Interestingly, health standard four mentions culture, so I wasn't too far off track!
I like how the health standards apply for all the grade levels, so it would be possible to discuss tattoos with tweens as well as teens vis a vis health related issues.

A little Waving, and some Wishing....

I managed to get my PowerPoint into my ella account. You can go see it here. It doesn't work in Mozilla Firefox, but does work in explorer and would probably work in netscape as well. It's more fun to watch it as a slide show (because of the animations), but you can just look at the slides, too.

Onto some Wishing. I have trouble assessing my own work. I can usually see the flaws and think of lots of places it could be improved, but that usually does not impact my grade. For this project, I should have cited all my sources more rigorously in my slides. My rationale is that between the bibliography and the webliography, each piece of information occurs multiple times, making it common knowledge. Also, it's hard citing sources in a PowerPoint. I had a tough time with the picture citations!

My biggest beef about my product, then, is that I could've made it better if I had had more time. In retrospect, I should've cited the sources for the facts better. I also left out some information that might have been worthwhile, such as how many people have tattoos, because I found so many different estimates! Anywhere from seven million to 25 million Americans have tattoos, depending on where you look.

Have I decided whether or not to get a tattoo? Nope. Haven't decided, but I'm leaning away from it after doing this project. Why? The pigments aren't regulated. The FDA does not investigate what chemicals are in the dyes that are put in people's skin! It can be very toxic!!! For instance, several articles mentioned car paint and printer ink. India ink is very common. There may also be heavy metals in the colors, such as mercury or lead. I find that very scary.

On the other hand, I love some of the artwork I found, and I like the idea of expressing myself through a tattoo.

For standards (to be continued)

THE END! WAVING!

You bet I'm waving. Bye-bye, tattoo project! I'll post my Bibliography & Webliography right here. I'll also attempt to upload my PowerPoint presentation (which I love) to oncourse. Sorry if you find the photo offensive. It's my THE END photo from my presentation. :)

http://www.tattoonow.com/tattoos/kim_reed/tattoos_6050.html

Bibliography

Benton, Robin, & DeRosa, Shawn. (2002, August). The stink over ink. Parks & Recreation, 58–60.

Bickerstaff, Linda. (2005). Tattoos: Fad or folly? Odyssey, 14(5), 34–37.

Brown, Kelli McCormack, Perimutter, Paula, & McDermott, Robert J. (2001). Warning kids about tattoos. Education Digest, 66(7), 55–59.

Hagy, Julie. (2005, July 28). Making tattoo parlors safe. Daily Press (Newport News, VA), n.p.

Kreahling, Lorraine. (2005, February 1). The perils of needles to the body. The New York Times, p. F5.

Miller, Jean-Chris. (2004). The body art book: A complete illustrated guide to tattoos, piercings, and other body modifications. New York: Berkley Books.

Mulrine, Anne. (2005). The thrill is gone. US News & World Report, 139(18), 80.

Sparling, Polly. (2004). Think before you ink. Current Health 2, 31(2), 8–12.

Tattoo inks may be toxic: EU. (2003, July 18). Toronto Star (Canada), p. F02.

Wykes, S.L. (2005, November 9). Law regulates tattoo artists. San Jose Mercury News (CA), n.p.

Tattoo or Not Tattoo?

Webliography

Guidelines and Checklists

∞Preparing for Your Tattoo

http://www.safe-tattoos.com/pamphlets/basic.html

Guidelines from the Alliance of Professional Tattooists.

∞Before You Tattoo

http://www.beforeyoutattoo.com/before-you-tattoo.html

This site advertises for a book, but also gives a lot of information.

∞Preparing for Your Tattoo

http://www.sanctuarytattoo.com/jen/tatprep.htm

Another checklist, more from a design standpoint

∞Indiana law regarding tattoos

http://ronjones.org/Handouts/BodyArt.pdf

This site also links to other states.

∞General information

http://tattoo.about.com/

This site also links to many other sites and has many FAQs.

Historical perspective

∞Tattoos By Design. History of Tattoos.

http://www.tattoos-by-design.co.uk/history.html

∞Dark Angel Tattoo Studio. The History of Tattooing.

http://www.darkangeltattoos.com/history.php

Teen Health Information

∞Nemours Foundation. TeensHealth: Tattoos.

http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_body/skin_stuff/safe_tattooing.html

∞WayneTeens.com. Tattoos Gone Bad.

http://www.wayneteens.com/CTI-tattooinggonebad.asp

Scary pictures of pus-laden infected tattoos.

Health issues

∞U. S. Food and Drug Administration.
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. TATTOOS and PERMANENT MAKEUP.

http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-204.html

∞American Academy of Dermatology. Tattoos, body piercings, and other skin adornments.

http://www.aad.org/public/Publications/pamphlets/tattoo.htm

∞Medline Plus. Piercing and Tattoos.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/piercingandtattoos.html

National Institutes of Health overview with links to information from National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, American Medical Association, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, & Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Miscellaneous….

∞Tattoo Ink Chemistry.

http://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/aa121602a.htm

∞Terry Watkins, Dial-the-Truth Ministries. To Tattoo or Not to Tattoo? A Christian Response to the Tattoo.

http://www.av1611.org/tattoos/intro.html

∞The Vanishing Tattoo.

http://www.av1611.org/tattoos/intro.html

∞The Modified Librarian: Librarianship and the Art of Body Modification.

http://www.bmeworld.com/gailcat/

∞Realistic Temporary Tattoos

http://www.nightmarefactory.com/tattoos/

∞Off the Map Tattoo, Tattoo Gallery.

http://www.offthemaptattoo.com/tattoos/

My favorite site for tattoo pictures.

I can see the light!

I spent a lot of time yesterday weaving and wrapping. I revamped my PowerPoint quite a bit. I had to figure out how to do the custom animations again. I've only used PowerPoint a few times, so I'm still learning. Last time I made a class presentation I borrowed a book from a friend, and that helped, but this time I'm just figuring things out by myself. It's kind of fun.

Wrapping means selecting and developing a product, and that's definitely where I am. I find that I'm still going back and synthesizing (weaving) as well....which makes sense! I have to think and evaluate as I create my product. I feel ready to wave, almost. A few more touches. I did the webliography yesterday, too, and started on the bibliography (that will have to be a word document). Doing the webliography and bibliography meant assessing some of my sources (again). I used this little rubric I found when I was doing one of the skyhoppers...The Quality Information Checklist (QUICK)...to kind of spot check my web sources. The bibliography was a little thin, so I went back to some of my saved searches and dredged up a few more quality articles. I also looked at all the books again and decided that only one really needed to be on the bibliography! As much as I'm interested in the feminist, cultural, and ethnographic aspects of tattooing (very academic, but oh so fascinating), they just don't apply to a practical inquiry such as this. Wait, I'm assessing....that's wishing....can't do that yet. :)

Wiggling & Weaving.....

Last night I spent hours re-locating all my tattoo pix on the web so I could properly cite them in my powerpoint. Yawn! But it was fun to find new stuff, too. Oddly, I couldn't find all the stuff I found before, so I deleted a few of my pictures. I'll be including both what I think are pretty tattoos and some truly nasty and scary ones. A friend of mine is quite disappointed that I didn't take a picture of her tattoo, so there's plenty of room for expansion of the project if I decide to go with personal photographs (at some point in the distant future, and not before Monday!). In fact, I saw a woman with writing all over her back at the elevator in the library the other day and wished I had a camera.

Thanks to Angie R, Angie W, and Adrea for helpful comments and encouragement! It helped when I was fussing with my slides today.

I made a bunch of notes for this blog entry. How organized of me! [pat pat pat on the back.]

I've been considering who the audience of my presentation would be, and I'm thinking it's anyone who's even remotely considering a tattoo, or anyone interested in tattoos, including teens and tweens who need to learn about the potential health dangers of tattoos, so they can make a more informed and less impulsive decision. I'm going to check back through the standards to see if there's anything like that. I found an article on how important it is for health educators to open a dialogue about the potential health dangers of tattooing to kids, especially so they don't have their friends give them home-made tattoos (YIKES!!!!). (I'll have a bibliography in my final product that includes this article).

I'd classify what I've been doing last night and today as Wiggling (evaluating) and Weaving (synthesizing). However, since I've also started drafting my presentation, I guess I'm edging toward Wrapping (Creating) as well. I've been using Annette's curvy chart to check my progress. There's also a comparison table of all the information inquiry models that I've been checking, and a more detailed set of tables that compares all the models. These are helpful tools for me.

I used an excellent transformation scaffold called PMI. It's meant for helping one make decisions in an organized way, and I really liked doing it. It's a Weaving activity, and according to deBono, it can revolutionize the way you think! Wow! It involves sitting down in complete quiet with no distractions for six minutes with a blank piece of paper divided into three columns labelled P, M, and I. First, for 2 minutes (and ONLY two minutes, you use a watch or timer) you quickly write down all the Positive comments about your question or issue (though it should be put in the form of a question). My question is: Should I get a tattoo or not? In the Minus column you jot down all the negative or minus comments that come to mind about your question. In the final column, I for Interesting, you write down all the interesting comments you think of about your question. That's it. As you're doing it, you have to be very open minded and write stuff as it occurs to you, whether or not you agree with it. You must do it in black pen on a blank piece of typing/copy paper (A4 in Britain), and you must WRITE it down, not TYPE it. The handwriting itself is supposed to hold clues. Look at what you've done and you should see the question more clearly.

I also made a huge list of pro's and con's for two reasons: 1) to go through the articles and make notes of what I thought about what I was reading and 2) to help with the sorting out process. From there I compared the two activities and came up with a 2nd draft of the my top ten lists. I made 1st drafts when I started my powerpoint slides the other day, but mainly as placeholders until I could actually look at my notes and information. Yes, I did it from memory. That's why I knew I needed to go back through the articles and notes again before I could do any more work on the presentation. I may still fiddle with the order, but overall I think I've made the decision about what to include for the lists. I started a Webliography slide, but haven't gotten anywhere with it. I have to re-examine all the websites I've looked at (that I didn't print out for reference). I jotted down some of the types of sites I want to include.

In Callison's components of Information Inquiry, I'm assimilating (accepting, incorporating, and rejecting) and inferring (looking for solution and meaning), but I'm also still exploring (mainly reading)! I find that I need to explore a bit more as I think about the information I have and how I'm using it. It's like Wiggling and Weaving all at once.

According to Kulhthau's ISP model, I'm at Step 6, closure of the search, and I should be feeling relief and also oscillating between satisfaction and dissatisfaction/disappointment. I can't say that's how feeling exactly. I have a certain amount of anxiety about finishing by the deadline, and I'm certainly looking FORWARD to feeling relieved, but I don't expect to feel much relief until I'm closer to finished. Yet I'm certainly using the strategies of stage 6, such as returning to the sources to check facts, making sure I've used all the information I need, and noticing where I need to fill in any gaps in my information. And I've been checking citations, too, like last night going through web pages again to find exact sources for the pictures!

That's it for now!

Lotsa Wiggling, a little Weaving

I've been doing a lot of Wiggling, and I don't mean just squirming over how I'm going to finish this project on time! :) Wiggling means evaluating, particularly of sources. I've looked at all my articles now, and I've gone back to the databases and looked a bit more to fill in some gaps. I've asked an expert, too. This morning I started weaving--working toward that final project by synthesizing. My tools were brainstorming and listmaking. I've also picked up a few decision making graphics that I still have to actually do, but just looking at the graphics set me up for making some decision about the project.

So, on my To Do list for today: do decision maker graphic and do PMI.

My brainstorming list of possible presentation modes:

• tattoo trivia test
• powerpoint
• combine these two
• Tattoo Terror (slide show)
• Lotsa links
  
• Tattoo checklist (handout)
• Bibliography
• Pro/Con
• Top Ten Reasons to Tattoo AND
• Top Ten Reasons NOT to Tattoo

My content list is focusing on the health issues surrounding tattoos

1. Safety

• HIV, heptatitis
• allergies
• infection (bacterial, on surface)
• cancer from toxins in dyes

2. Pain

3. Appearance - fading

4. ~$100 for a small tattoo, but 10x that to have it removed

I felt pretty happy after I made my lists. The Top Ten Lists really appealed to me, and PowerPoint would be a nice way to present the lists. So I actually got started on my PowerPoint!

Then I realized that I needed more pictures, especially of nasty and scary tattoos, so back I went to Google Image search.

And now I must run since I have a class this afternoon! I feel like I've made great progress!

Follow up from Ask an Expert

I got a response for my follow-up question from Ask-an-Expert . I'm really pleased with the answers I got, and I have to admit, somewhat relieved. Yes, there can be problems associated with tattoos and getting a tattoo, but there's a way to make sure these problems don't arise. My thinking is that I'd get checked for allergies before getting the tattoo. Little spot checks somewhere. I should probably try to scare myself again! Yes, I'll google tattoo horror stories and see what comes up. :)

Volunteer Michael S. Fisher, Ph.D., M.D. Answers

Subject	tattoos
Question	I've heard of all these risks, actually. Are there any figures about the actual incidence of infection (bacterial or viral)? What percentage of people have allergic reactions to the dyes? Is it possible to avoid some of the risk by choosing a licensed operator (who uses new needles, autoclaves everything, uses sterile technique, etc.)? Your reaction is very strongly negative, so I'm assuming you've had personal experience with some of the health problems associated with tattoos. Is that the case? Thank you for your insights and opinions, including aesthetic ones. I was wondering how tattoos aged, and you answered that question quite succinctly. Any more insight you have would be greatly appreciated. ------------------------- Followup To Question - What are the health risks associated with getting a tattoo? Have you ever seen any skin disfigurations or infections caused by tattooing? Thank you! Answer - There are many health risks for getting a tatoo. 1) you can become allergic to the pigment used in the tatoo which is expressed by an itchy rash in the area of the pigmentation, 2) the area of the tatoo can become infected with bacteria, 3) if the needles used for the tatoo are not totally steralized you can get Hepatitis as well as HIV.4)In time the pigment changes and the lines in the tatoo blur, thus making the tatoo look awful in time. 5)It costs about 100 times more money to remove a tatoo than to get one. There is no way I would have a tatoo placed on my body.
Answer	In the textbook called contact Dermatitis on page 812 it states: In tatoos, mercury red, chrome green, cobalt blue, or cadmium yellow may produce localized or generalized eczematous eruptions in sensitized infividuals. Granulomatous and photosensitive reactions can also occur. The percentages of patients that have this reaction is not included. I have seen tatoos that have faded with time that look terrible. I have had 10 patients with an allergic reaction to mecury red. The adverse response was so severe that a surgeon had to remove the red pigment leaving a very large scar. If the tatoo parlor has an autoclave, do they have a positive control showing that the autoclave really was working? A licensed tatoo operator can not protect you from allergic reactions to pigment just to infections.