Mike Hammond
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Over the course of doing this web project I learned a lot about myself and the subject matter.  It was fun creating a web page as I had no real experience doing so in the past.  Each week as I worked on the project I looked forward to getting it published and receiving feedback from my classmates.  Most of the feedback I received was encouraging and all of it was helpful.

 

Each episode that I did was dedicated to a different time period and I tried to look at inventions from various parts of the world.  It is easy to forget that western Europeans aren’t the only people in the world that affected the history of science.  This is something that I have learned in Dr. Magruder’s course and it was reinforced while I was doing this project. 

 

It was hard to find primary sources for some of the episodes but once I did they were usually pretty rewarding.  My favorite primary source was Regiment for the Sea written by William Borne.  I searched the internet, high and low, trying to find this book.  When I did finally find the book online I was on a deadline to get the episode using it published.  Even though I was looking specifically for information on the chip log I was fascinated and kept finding myself reading about other techniques that mariners of the time used.  It’s equally interesting to know that a lot of the techniques taught about in the book still are, or were as of 2000, being taught to sailors in the Navy.  Even though they don’t rely on these techniques the basics are still good to understand.

 

Another thing that interested me in researching this project was the idea that the Chinese developed the idea of using a magnetic compass for navigation and that it happened so long ago.  I would have guessed that the compass would have been pioneered by an island nation, probably Greece or even a British Isle.  This is probably the result of a western bias but even if I would have been told it came from the Far East I would have guessed Japan or an Indonesian Country Came up with the idea.

 

The first episode that I created was the Lighthouse of Alexandria episode and it was probably the most interesting for me, not in terms of subject matter but in learning the process.  I have never done anything like this project either in terms of creating a web page or using the style of writing that I did.  I don’t know if others will feel the same way but after looking back at the final result I am pretty happy with the way that it all came out.  It was a nice change of pace from the normal rigors of writing a term paper.  That is not to say that it was any easier but I enjoyed doing it more than some others that I have done and learned about more than just the history of science