David Beck’s Blog

During my presentation several questions were asked of me about my site. Two questions in particular focused on whether I should include aspects of the Byzantine Empire into my site and also explain what happened to Europe after the fall of Rome and its’ descent into the Dark Ages. A third question was whether I would include scholarly articles for teachers coming to the site. I would like to address these questions and to see if anyone in class has any feelings about the very focused and limited scope of my site.

THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE
While it is true that this was in fact a continuation of the Roman Empire, I am focusing solely on the Western Empire and do not wish to confuse the reader or user with a complex answer.  The purpose of the site is to give a very simple and straightforward account of the fall of the Western Roman Empire.  I think it will be clear to most readers that the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire had been going their separate ways for centuries and this different way of life hurt the West much more than the East.  If someone would like to explore the Byzantine Empire more than they should feel free, it just won’t happen on my site.  This does not preclude the possibility of linking other sites about the Byzantines to my site.

THE DARK AGES
The way I envision the site is strictly to explain to kids in grades 7-12 why the Western Roman Empire collapsed. I hope to show them that the theories historians have developed did not happen overnight, but took hundreds of years of decline before they finally fractured the Empire permanently.  Obviously it is hard to explain how Rome fell and not explain what happened to it after the last Western Roman Emperor was removed.  However, I will try to keep the epilogue to the events of my website as brief as possible.  There are many good websites that detail the Dark Ages and Medieval Europe that students can peruse.  Especially after reading the articles on preservation, I do not want to create more work for myself in the future than is necessary to keep my site going.  By keeping the site focused solely on the causes of Rome’s decline, I hope to have an informative and cohesive website.

SCHOLARLY PAPERS FOR VISITORS WHO ARE TEACHER
At first this idea appealed to me.  However, the fact is, you don’t have to read scholarly articles to be able to teach middle schoolers.  While I welcome teachers to my site to read and even exchange teaching strategies and ideas, I do not think putting journal articles on the site would be very wise, especially when it comes time to back those things up and dealing with copyright issues.  There are other sites on the web for those teachers really wanting to know all the facts about the fall of Rome.  Although I intend to have teachers come to the site, I imagine the users to be mainly students using this in the classroom.

As you can see, my site is really going to be limited to strictly the fall of the Western Roman Empire.  Any student or teacher wanting to know more would have to consult another site.  Clearly, my site is in direct response to the cluttered and ugly site put out by Roman-Empire.net.  Just like the Egyptian site from the British Museum, I hope by simplifying my topic and keeping it within the bounds of the Standards of Learning, I can create a site that is educationally stimulating and fun for students without getting away from the purpose for why I designed it in the first place.