Over that last month or so, we have been using a few softwares to learn.  I would like your ideas and opinions for how to use these tools in the future.  

Please be honest and answer as detailed as you can.  Thanks in advance for helping me to be a better teacher for you.  

What does this map tell us about Mansa Musa? 

Below is an section from a 7 page reading.  The entire article is below the music video if you want to see it.  

Take down at least five details about the Hajj to Meeca. 
Then add five impacts of this trip on the boarder world! 
Then compare the video from History Teachers to what you learned.  

Mansa Musa’s Hajj

It took several months for both officials and servants to prepare for this 3000-mile trip from Niani (near Timbuktu)  to Makkah (ANOTHER SPELLING FOR MECCA) . They collected different animals to use as both beasts of burden and food sources: horses, camels, cows and goats. Once assembled the caravan headed along the Niger River to Mema, then to Walata then through Taghaza and Tuat and then traveled eastward across the Sahara Desert, a crossing that took almost three months.

Musa's journey was documented by several eyewitnesses along his route, who were in awe of his wealth and the size of his entourage, so records exist in a variety of sources, including journals, oral accounts and histories.

Along the way Mansa Musa displayed his charitable and generous side. Wherever his train halted on a Friday, he paid for the erection of a mosque. Everywhere he went, he became legendary for his generosity and the extravagant spending of his entourage. Every city he passed through received part of his vast largesse and he showered riches on the needy as required by a pillar of Islam. He also traded gold for souvenirs.

After traveling for about 8 months, they arrived in Cairo where Mansa Musa visited with the Mamluk sultan, Al-Nasir Muhammad in July 1324 and continued to give and spend generously. It was also in Cairo where this largesse had the greatest immediate impact.

So much gold suddenly floated Cairo, and later in Makkah and Madinah, that the value of the metal collapsed. Prices on goods and wares super inflated in an attempt to adjust to the amount of gold spreading through local populations. It would take 20 years for the price of gold to recover.

Realizing what he had, and having spent everything he had left in Makkah and Madinah, Mansa Musa artificially restored some of the value of the

metal by borrowing all he needed for the return trip from money-lenders in Cairo, at high interest. This is the only time in recorded history that one man directly controlled the price of gold in the Mediterranean.

Impact

While it may have been solely intended as an expression of religious devotion, Musa’s hajj and the wealth he displayed had far-reaching effects.

He started new trade routes and encouraged more trade with Muslim traders by bringing back four sharifs (descendants of Muhammad) to live in Mali. He also established lasting relationships with other rulers whom he had encountered during his hajj

   Tales of the hajj spread Mali's renown and prestige, not only in the Islamic countries but to the far corners of medieval Europe. Its riches fired up the imagination as El Dorado did later. In 1339, Mali appeared on a "Map of the World". In 1367, another map of the world showed a road leading from North Africa through the Atlas Mountains into the Western Sudan. In 1375 a third map of the world depicted Mansa Musa seated on his throne in the area south of the Sahara, gazing at a gold nugget in his right hand, holding a golden scepter in his left, and wearing a golden crown on his head..........

   Mansa Musa strengthened Islam and promoted education, trade, and commerce in Mali. The foundations were laid for Walata, Jenne, and Timbuktu becoming the cultural and commercial centers of the Western Sudan, eclipsing those of North Africa and producing Arabic-language black literature in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Diplomatic relations were established and ambassadors were exchanged between Mali and Morocco, and Malinke students were sent to study in Morocco.

Timbuktu rose to become not only an important city in the trans-Saharan trade route but also the center of Islamic scholarship. Muslims came from distant countries to receive an education at the Sankore University that he built in Timbuktu.

Books were not only written in Timbuktu, but they were also imported and copied there. There was an advanced local book copying industry in the city. The universities and private libraries contained unparalleled scholarly works.

Students were asked to construct their own learning visual for their blogs over the last few days.  Below are a few examples of what students made.