My commment on Lawrence's blog

I think you can find some good info on the First crusade on this website
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/first_crusade.htm

The Crusades Project: Day 2

Today, I began researching my info for the project. I'm planning on finding all my info today, and then on working on the final project in class tomorrow.

I've also decided to make a lot of changes. I researched the Second Crusade and found very limited information dealing with Muslims. So instead, I'm doing the Third Crusade.

I also tried researching on Sweet Search, and although it provides reputable sources, I think it really limits all the good information. So now, I'm planning on changing to Bing and Google search.

For my presentation, I decided to leave behind xtranormal.com, since the free version is very limited and I've experienced a bunch of technical difficulties with it, like the speech part of the animation. So now, I have two options, the script or the rage comic. I'm most likely gonna do the rage comic, because it's funny and more entertaining than a script.

The Crusades Project: Day 1

Today, I started brainstorming ideas for my Crusades project. I think I'll be doing the First Crusade (not the People's Crusade), the Second Crusade, and the Peace Crusade. I chose these three crusades, because I think they're the ones that had the most impact on the Muslims, which is kind of a big deal, since I'll be writing this from the perspective of the Muslims. I also feel that these three crusades are diverse, since the first one is about bloody massacre, the second about Muslim victory under Saladin, and the peace crusade about negotiations and peace.

I am not too sure about how to do this project, but I have come up with a couple of possibilities...

1. A script, similar to what we did in the Philosophers go to Starbucks thing
2. Then i checked out animated skits online and found www.xtranormal.com
3. A rage comic (or maybe a regular one?)

I am planning on finding all my info online, because it is very convenient and accessible. I tried out a couple of search engines:

1. Google
2. Yahoo
3. Bing
4. Sweet Search

Google, Yahoo, and Bing seem to return identical results. There are some that are good, and some that are bad. Then there's just Wikipedia...

I had most success with Sweet Search, because it filtered out the untrustworthy sites and the useless ones. It returned all credible sources (.gov, .edu, etc), but I think it also might have weeded out some perfectly good sources. But overall, I think I'll use Sweet Search the most, and I will check out the other ones to see if there's any good stuff.

Africa map questions

Why did the textbook's mapmakers choose to represent Africa in the way they did, and what was the impact of this choice on your understanding of Africa; and then what is the impact of the additions we made in class on that understanding of Africa?

I think that the mapmakers chose to represent Africa so simply, because, in all the other chapters, the maps are of individual regions or kingdoms. This is the map of the entire continent of Africa, which included many kingdoms and city-states. They would have much more space to add details on the maps of individual regions, while, if they tried to do the same with this map, it would be cluttered and hard to understand. 

This style of mapping did not have much impact on my understanding of Africa, because the text in the book fills me in on all the information that the map is missing. Also, I don't really check out maps that often, so it doesn't make much of a difference.

Some of the additions we made in class helped, such as Africa's exports and contribution to the outside world. But for the most part, the map just became cluttered and messy after we added to it. I could barely read it. And we would get the same information by reading the text book anyway. So, the new map just made me confused and I don't think I would use it to study.

Corrected Africa map

Postclassical Africa map

How I want my story told

I would rather have my story told as a song than as a bunch of facts, like you would find in a textbook. If my story is told as plain facts, no one would read it voluntarily in the first place. A perfect example of that is our school textbooks. No one would voluntarily take time out of their day to read facts about some dead guy. Second, even if they did actually read my story voluntarily, it would not stick to their minds. When I read the textbook, I only retain the information until my test is over. Then I would forget all the information, because it is of no use to me. However, if my story was told as a song, rather than as plain facts, people might actually be interested in reading it, or singing it, because it would have music along with it. And music is very catchy, because it is not monotonous like plain facts, so it would also stick to their minds and they would remember it for a longer amount of time.