I chose the Timeline platform for my topic because Augustus’ political career follows a very linear pattern. Each event I describe builds on the previous and all occurred around Rome, thus the concept of space isn’t as important for making my argument. In addition, the argument I made, that his career overall marked the beginning of the empire and the end of the republic, is more of a linear pattern as well. The story-map platform would have been more spacial which doesn’t necessarily have an effect on events leading up to the end of the republic. My argument is more strongly supported by a linear pattern of events illustrating how the republic became an empire. The most rewarding part for me was seeing the end result and realizing I’m capable of creating a visually pleasing timeline full of information that can help others learn more easily about my topic. I have always found interactive learning to be more beneficial for students and teachers alike. It makes studies more interesting and works other parts of your brain.
I prefer this series of projects to the typical projects in most upper division history classes because it can be more personalized and creative on our end. There’s more room to develop our own ideas with less boundaries. It takes the typical projects we do to the next level. For teachers, even in lower level classes and high school, I think this project would help all students better learn and understand history. These platforms could also be used to present bigger ideas to the public in a visually pleasing and interactive way that would attract them.
Challenges I Experienced: I had a really hard time hyperlinking the information I gathered out to its sources, because I had never done anything like that before. But once I figured it out it was rather easy and I got the hang of it. Another difficulty I had was coding for the timeline. But like hyperlinking, at first I was just overwhelmed with learning something that I thought would be really hard but turned out to be fairly easy as well. Generally it was just a lot of different things to do for one project and to keep track of but in the end that’s the kind of project you feel most proud of accomplishing. I’m very proud of myself for being able to hyperlink all the sources and code my information to format it the right way, those were the biggest accomplishments for me.
Looking back on the process, I think once you’ve gathered all your information and pictures and videos that you want to incorporate, the fun part begins where you get to start placing all that stuff into the excel spread street which will transfer over to your timeline. From there you get to add your own touch to the look and presentation of it. For me the final touches were the most exciting.