The Mongol Trial

I enjoyed the Mongol trial. I thought it was funny seeing my peers be questioned and how they reacted under pressure. The preparation for it was easy but time consuming. It required a lot of research and we had to anticipate what the prosecution was going to say so we would have a rebuttal argument ready. This I felt was the hardest part because we couldn't be 100% confident in our preparation because we couldn't predict everything the prosecution was going to say. I felt my role required the most preparation because I had to deliver two formal statements that reflected directly what was going to happen or what happened in the trial. I still have yet to deliver the closing statement, but I feel that it was much harder to write than the opening statement. This is because you are just introducing the case in the beginning and arguing your point alone. But with the closing statement you have to still support your argument while disproving the opposing sides argument. I think my opening statement was a little long but i was happy with the way that it was structured because I feel like it flowed from one topic to the other easily and introduced all necessary aspects to the case.
My view on the Mongols is that they were simply well trained warriors and not murdering psychos. I feel that any successful empire has had a similar story in that their militaries conquered a bunch of lands and killed opposing soldiers in the heat of battle. I think we should admire them for what they built. It was the largest empire in history basically stretching for all of Europe and asia. Why should they not be praised? Completely aside from this trial I would say that the Mongols are innocent and did not commit the charges of genocide, terrorism, or kidnapping.

Genghis Khan...psycho killer???

Despite his many brutal murders in life I somehow think Genghis Khan was a person and not a psycho violent killer. The part of the movie that convinced me that he thought about his actions was when he couldn't bear to kill his childhood friend Jamuka. I believe he was a person of honor and loyalty. When Jamuka's people turned him into Khan for their own survival, Genghis killed them because of their disloyalty and refused to kill Jamuka because of their old friendship. Even when Jamuka begged to be killed, Genghis refused to watch and showed he had some feelings about his actions. To be a psycho killer I think it requires that the person have no reasoning as to what is right and wrong, and I believe Genghis Khan knew what was right and what was wrong in this situation.

Project #6

So, the project went well. I don't think it turned out as good as I would have hoped, but in the future I already have ideas with more collaboration involved. I prefered this format of the project much more than my former idea, because I don't think my point wouldn't have gotten across as clearly. Also, I would like to reflect back on my research. I found that while looking through my book I could find really solid and truthful information, while on certain websites I wasn't too sure. But, the websites provide the convenience of finding it for you while searching through a full length text is not too much fun. I think I decided to display my understanding this way was because I wanted my project to be more technology oriented, and with my original idea it wasn't. As for the search engines, I really enjoyed sweetsearch. It had more intricate and detailed sites that I found quite informative. Other than that mish mosh of words I think that concludes my project. Here is the bibliography:

Websites
. "History Learning Site." Saladin. N.p., 2011. Web. 13 Jan 2012. <http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Saladin.htm>.

. "The Crusades." New World Encyclopedia. N.p., 2 Oct 2011. Web. 13 Jan 2012. <http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/The_Crusades>.

. "The Crusades." The Crusades. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Jan 2012. <http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-crusades.htm>.

. "The 8 Crusades Explained." listverse.com. N.p., 07 Aug 2007. Web. 13 Jan 2012. <http://listverse.com/2007/08/07/the-8-crusades-explained/>.

Books

Armstrong, Karen. Holy War: The CRusades and Their Impact on Toda'ys World. 1st. New York: DoubleDay, 1991. Print.

Bentley, Jerry H., and Herbert F. Ziegler. Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past. 3rd. McGraw Hill: New York, 2006. Print.

Biel, Timothy Levi. The Crusades. San Diego: Lucent Books, 1995. Print.

Konstam, Angus. Historical Atlas of The Crusades. 2nd. New York: Thalamus Publishing, 2002. Print.

Rice Jr., Earle. Life During the Crusades . San Diego: Lucent Books, 1998. Print.

Project #5

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Muslims-Reactions-to-the-Crusades-Support-Group/197352293694547?sk=wall&filter=1
This is the link for my facebook page for the project. I will post the bibliography in a little bit. Just a couple of complaints when using facebook but for the most part it was very user-friendly. 1. I think it thought I was trying to hack the system because it was constantly asking for verification. 2. I didn't care for having to switch back and forth between users. 3. There were a lot of preliminary steps in the settings to go through before I could get going. 4. It stopped letting me post pictures.

Otherwise I hope you enjoy it.

Project #4

Ok, so I've decided to do something diferent. My original idea didn't work out so well and I want my project to be more technology savy. After talking to Nadia and hearing her sucess with facebook I have decided to do something on facebook as well. My plan is two make four different users, one for each crusade I am doing then post status updates and have them interact with one another based on their thoughts throughout the crusade. The crusades I will be focusing on are the first, second, third and fourth crusades. After my research I feel that these crusades have the most to offer in my project, even though it was hard to give up the oppurtunity to mock children who forgot they needed a boat. Well its off to facebook from here. I will post the final product on the blog later along with my bibliography.

Project Post #3

When it comes to the collaboration part of the project I worked with Iselle, Bobby, and Nadia. I commented on some of their blog posts with websites I felt were helpful to me, and based on their research I think would be helpful to them too. These websites I found were from sweetsearch and bing. I tried to stay away from google just because I was curious what other sites had to offer. One particular site I found on Bing was an encyclopedia that was structured a lot like wikipedia, however, I felt like this website had a lot more in depth information while still maintaining the easy navigation that wikipedia uses. The website I found on sweetsearch differed a lot from sites that I would usually find on google. This was basically an index of all the crusades with basic information on the homepage. Then you could select which crusade you wanted to find more about, and it would bring up a very detailed and thorough page of what happened. Lastly, I went a bit oldschool for some of my sources. Like I mentioned before in my first blogpost about the project, I went to the Burlington Public Library to check out some books. What I like about these books is that every single one of them is different and offers something extra to my project, which is something that is sometimes overlooked when using websites. Websites can tend to be very similar and uniform in their presentation of topics. Where as the books I picked out have certain images and diagrams that enhance the material and make each source unique.

Project Post #2

So for the structure of the project I'm going to try and spike my creativity a little bit and do something  different. I find I work better visually so I am going to construct a four sided pyramid, one side for each crusade I'm doing. At the top of the pyramid will be the people who I believe "won" the crusade. By won I do not only mean physically beat the other side, but I mean who had psycological or geographical advantages over the other side. Then using my 3D diagram I will make a video explaining why I put everything there aand how this explains the Muslims reactions.

Project Post #1

Today I went to the Burlington Public Library to get a few books on the crusades to learn some more in depth information. I found several books, but the one that interested me the most was an atlas of all the crusades. It had large maps showing every individual movement, the people involved and the general locations affected. I think this will be most helpful in understanding the chronology of the crusades and assist in developing a conclusion on the Muslims opinion of them.