David Beck’s Blog

Project

Although there are several ideas that I have for a historical website, the idea that is currently at the top of my list is a site dedicated to all things Rome. This site would be geared towards middle to high school students and would offer a one stop shop for those interested in the various aspects of the history of the Roman Empire.

The site that I have chosen to critique is the aptly named The Illustrated History of the Roman Empire(www.roman-empire.net/index.html)

At first this site looks really good. It has a lot of great information about Rome. It breaks down the history of the Empire into convenient categories and has a section for adults and kids. However the site has some problems that I would correct if I suddenly found myself with the title of webmaster for this site.

My first order of business would be to clean up the clutter on this site. There is too much writing on the homepage. The eye does not know where to look first. There is some hierarchy as the main categories are distinguished from the rest of the material by silver bars. They are grouped in rows of 3 and in columns of 5. On the left side of the screen is the latest updates section. Underneath the categories table there are a series of bolded highlights that do not seem to have a home within any of the categories. Beneath that you finally come to the search feature. The silver bars are outdated way of helping to group the main ideas of the site. Having the search feature at the bottom makes your site more cumbersome to use and therefore lose users.

I would clean up this mess by reducing the homepage to a series of 8 moderate sized sections highlighted by a graphic that would also act as a link. Visually it would look very similar to the Mt. Vernon site we looked at in class last Monday. The sections would be titled, Founding/Kings, Early Republic, Julius Caesar/Augustus, Later Republic/Constantine, Decline and Fall, Emperors(graphic with pics of all Caesars and links to their bios), and finally a section on maps. There would a search feature in the upper right hand corner above the large graphic on the homepage. Each graphic would then take you into separate pages each linked together by the overarching theme. Within each section, one would learn the history of the period, daily life, religion, politics, sports, army/battles, social hierarchy, and achievements.

I prefer homepages that don’t require the user to scroll down and subscribe to the philosophy that less is more when it comes to web design. People today are very impatient when it comes to web surfing. They want to find what they are looking for quickly and you are only hurting your website by forcing a user to scroll down in order to find information.

This site has a lot of potential. Every school child in America must take a class at some point and learn about Rome. Having one decent site devoted to all of the various aspects of Rome would make learning easier for the kids and perhaps even spark a lifelong interest.

PODCASTS

I listened to my first podcast this weekend. I sampled the Amateur Traveler and Digital Campus 10. Despite the name Amateur Traveler, that podcast is not performed by a true amateur. He threw in a plug for some travel company in the beginning and each episode is devoted to a new destination. I listened to his last trip to Las Vegas. A teacher in my school has done a little with podcasts and I think for teachers they could be wonderful tools. I could put a few of my lectures on the web for my students to listen to again in preparation for an exam. I particulalry enjoyed the screencast that Trevor linked everyone to on his blog. It was very cool and a great explanation for how Wikipedia works.

Wikipedia

The three sites I looked up on Wikipedia were the bands, Cream, Led Zeppelin, and the 19th Century German politician Otto Von Bismarck. I have used Wikipedia a lot over the last several years. I think the site is a great way to find basic information about a topic. The histories for Led Zeppelin and Cream go back all the way to 2001 and 2002 respectively. The early posts were not much. Very brief and very simple looking. Over the course of the years better pics and other graphics have been created in order to enhance the overall appearance of Wikipedia. Maybe by the end of the year I will feel confident enough to post my own information on Wikipedia and have it accepted.

For several years, whenever teaching my unit on Egypt, I have had my students visit the Ancient Egypt website developed by the British Museum.  The address is http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk.  Although it has a couple of issues, I do think this site is a very good example of what someone can accomplish when they keep things simple.

Before I get into what I like about this site, I want to discuss a few of the problems this website has.  First, it has not been updated since 1999.  Sure the information hasn’t changed, but newer technology is available that would definitely benefit the site.  They use a lot of shockwave for their games and animate several of the graphics.  The pages also take some time to load even if you are on cable.  However, even with all those problems the site is still worth the time spent navigating it.

The home page is a black background with a stone tablet in the center of the screen.  Along the left are the various topics one can look up.  Pyramids, Gods/Goddesses, Mummies, Pharoahs, and writing are all various subjects one can peruse.  For each individual subject, one can select a story, challenge, explore or play a game.  For example the story on the Mummification page deals with the process the Egyptian went through to create mummies.  They hyperlink vocab words that the user can click on to learn what they mean.  The information on each page is concise and gets straight to the point.

The pages are not too busy and the alignment and proximity are good.  The site is very easy for my students to use and I believe they learn a lot when we do the exercises I developed to accompany this site.  While there are other sites about Egypt that are more sophisticated and probably more spectacular with their use of VR and other newer technologies, this Ancient Egypt site does a commendable job and is aesthetically pleasing at the same time!

As an 8th grade World History teacher, I am constantly in search of quality websites to share with my students. The biggest criteria for me when evaluating a website is the ease with which a 13 or 14 year old can navigate the site. For my students I want the information to be concise, topical, and clear. The first website I have chosen to review is Eyewitness to History, which is found appropriately enough at www.eyewitnesstohistory.com. This site deals with popular history. It is a terrific site with which to interest kids in primary sources. The design of the website is fairly straight forward. Below the main heading, they have placed the various historical periods that one can visit. A visitor can click on, for example, Middle Ages and Renaissance and up pops twenty different events from which to choose. There are first person accounts from monks, kings, queens and even a tortured victim from the Tower of London. Each account is hyperlinked. The text is generally aligned into two columns each left justified, but there is space on each side so that the text doesn’t appear to come out of the side of the screen. The background is a beige/tan type color and the contrast between background and font is just fine. If you click on the tab for snapshots, thumbnails appear which allow for faster download time. The user then simply has to click on the thumbnail for a larger picture with a description to appear. They also have movie clips. The one I viewed was of a submarine being sunk after the crew was made to surrender during World War I. With a slow connection speed the movies may be a problem.

If a first person account is what you want then this site will not disappoint. However, there is one issue that may cause users to discount the site as nothing but rubbish. The most problematic area for this site is the amount of advertising that is done on it. On the home page itself, I counted no fewer than three large and animated advertisements. They are also on every page. One can be reading about Herodotus’ account of the Battle of Marathon and then be abruptly assaulted with an animated ad from ING. It makes a user wonder whether to true intentions of the website are to promote historical accounts or make a quick dime with all the advertisements. They definitely detract from an otherwise solid site.

In the final analysis the design of this site is very good. It aligns the text and pictures nicely. There is good proximity between the various design elements. There is a nice sense of repetition between each of the pages so that the page on 20 Century accounts looks exactly like the page for ancient history. I do not like the site simply because of the advertisements and the rather small heading they use for their website. The ads are bigger than the main heading. That should tell you where the main interests of the producers of this site are…in their pocketbooks!

Back in 1996 when Bill Clinton was running for a second term in office, he used the slogan “Bridge to the 21st Century”.  Well, after creating this blog, I feel like I have successfully crossed that bridge and am immersing myself more fully into a world that is now being transformed by new media and technology.  I think this class is going to expand my consciousness when it comes to the various paths one can take within the discipline of history and how the future of historical preservation is going to be altered by the digital age!