Month: October 2017

Milestone #2

Missed the mark a tiny bit with this milestone, sort of pulled the old switch-a-roo.

Got a lot done on the website in stead of getting most of our pages written. Got some help from my peers (you know who you are) who helped me figure out how to post timelines and maps onto the website. So, thank you very much. Shane and I have a pretty solid layout for the website. We have what we think will be all of our tabs and pages. Figuring out what we wanted to put up and where sort of helped me figure out how to structure all of my writings from here on out. Shane posted he had a little trouble doing the page write-ups and I agree with him. We really want it to flow and be readily accessible to the general public so we are trying to stay away from what feels like a research paper that we copy and pasted onto our website. So, I feel the writing will just be a little trial and error. We’ll really want some feedback from our peers and professors about how readable the website is once we have some writings put up.

Otherwise, I believe it’s coming along nicely. As far as research, Shane and I wanted a combination of primary and secondary sources around 15 to 20 and I believe we have 16 or 17. Shane’s grandmother does landscapes of Berkshire County and she’s letting us use a few to post on the website. Like I said earlier, we’ve got all of our pages laid out, just need to make the website look pretty. Otherwise, I think the website is coming along well. For this milestone we wanted to have all of our write-ups done for the pages but instead we got a lot done on the website which feels pretty good, that was really the scariest part.

Feeling good about this milestone!

This is gonna be a short post. Not much new has happened. Shane and I got together, talked about the set-up of the website a little. Spent some time looking at the website, remembered how to change the menu bars. One question for the group: How do I go about embedding (hopefully that’s the correct term) a map or a timeline into the website? Couldn’t figure it out for the blog post we had to do, should know now.

Other than that we’re just plugging away!

Milestone #1 

My largest setback was the fact that Shane took all of the books about Shay’s Rebellion out of our library. But other than that we’re both in pretty good shape. So, together we have a number of books and journal articles. Otherwise we’ve had no real setbacks. It’s been relatively easy finding sources, like I said our library had a number of good books on the rebellion. I poked around JSTOR and found quite a few journal articles; “Shays’ Rebellion: An Episode in American State-Making,” “A Sign Taken for History: Daniel Shays’ Memorial in Petersham, Massachusetts,”  “Shays’s Rebellion and Its Aftermath: A View from Springfield, Massachusetts, 1787.” That’s just to name a few. 

To split up the work for our first milestone, Shane and I decided to split up what information each of us would be looking for. He looked for sources that focused more on the effects of the rebellion while I gathered as much information about the rebellion as I could. I hoped to find a number of different sources that would provide a good basis for viewers who knew little to nothing about the rebellion. I’m hoping these sources provides us with lots of names, dates, and places so we can have a number of dates for our timelines, places for maps and people to find images of to decorate our site with.

The time Shane and I have spent together we’ve discussed our findings and it is clear that we both have good amounts of information. From the reasons the rebellion started due to a depression in 1785, a weak national government, and worthless paper currency. The battle at the Springfield Armory where half a dozen rebels were killed and the rest routed and the battle of Petersham (a place in Massachusetts I’ve never even heard of, had to look it up on a map). These led finally the implications the rebellion had on the National Convention and the writing of the Constitution. We have a number of good strong sources to flesh out all of these topics and more.

All in all, the project is coming together swimmingly. Shane hopes to head to the Springfield Armory to take some pictures. I’ll probably find mine online of people involved in the rebellion and whatnot. We have a number of resources from different years dating back to the early 1800s all the way up to 2013. We have a good grasp on the basic information and and looking forward to start working on the maps, timelines and write-ups for the website.

Another week fighting the good fight.

Milestone #1 is looking pretty good. Gathering all of our information to start getting into the nitty-gritty of the website building. In reality it’s been a pretty uneventful week. Researching, scouring the library, scouring the internet. Shane and I worked together a bit, be it in person or over good.docs. Not much else to update everyone on. Not many roadblocks, it’s been a pretty good process so far. The biggest problem Shane and I have is the fact that we live 45 minutes from each other and we both work full time. But we’re making it work. Livin’ the dream!

Hoping to start the website next week and really start getting work done on it. Hopefully everyone else is doing well on their projects.

Been a long weekend.

Shane and I spent a good couple of hours at our school’s library going over the Project Contract, the website design, how we’re going to pull this off. Made a bit of headway. It’s actually kind of interesting to see how well the two of us work together. I know that really has no bearing on what stage our project is in, but it’s important (in my opinion) for groups to work together. We tend to have the same feelings on most decisions for the website, on what’s important and unimportant, etc. It makes the project go much more smoothly.

As for the project itself, we have been spending most of our time on the contract, not to worried at the moment about other parts. First things first. Google.docs is a life saver. Since Shane and I both work full time and since I live 45 minutes from the school and him it’s a little difficult for us to get together more than a few times a week. However, we’ve made it work.

All in all, we’re trucking along. Rollin’ wheels and shiftin’ gears as one might say.