New Teacher Resource Brings New York African-American History to Life

      This month New York City public schools are accessing a new resource, MAAP, a Web-based teaching tool that uses video, audio, historic maps and other components to bring to life African-American history in New York City, reports the Los Angeles Times.

MAAP – the acronym stands for “Mapping the African American Past” – is the joint creation of Columbia’s Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, which developed the Web programming and infrastructure; Creative Curriculum Initiatives, which provided text content about historic New York City sites; and Teachers College, which has created curriculum for use by New York City teachers.

Funded by a grant from JP Morgan Chase, MAAP will be officially launched in late February or early March with a live demonstration for teachers at Teachers College-affiliated Heritage High School in East Harlem.

The demonstration will be taped and posted on the MAAP Web site for use by other teachers. A second demonstration, to be held at another location, is being planned for middle school teachers. The curriculum and lesson plans are related to each site and adapted for students in different grades. The lessons are organized into modules organized around the following themes:

*The development of the African-American community in New York City

*Resistance and self-determination in the face of slavery and discrimination

*African-American contributions to building New York City

The MAAP Web site will also act as a portal to glossaries of concepts and terms, profiles of historical events and figures, videotaped commentary by faculty experts, film and music clips, and historical photographs and artwork.

Eventually, a printed curriculum will be produced to be distributed free of charge to 1,000 teachers in New York State. The Web site, offered free of charge to teachers, is also open to the public at no cost, and will be actively promoted to tourists. It can be visited at http://maap.columbia.edu/place/index.html.  

— Teachers of Color