This web site is a local, New Jersey, version of the national African American World web site. The PBS web site African American World provides rich resources in public broadcasting and beyond with themes on African American history, culture, the arts, race and society. New Jersey's public broadcasting station, NJN, provided outreach to high school students to explore web content on African American history and culture. Students attending high schools in Camden, NJ, participated in workshops and navigated web content developed by public broadcasting stations. PBS and NPR have developed extensive web content in support of television and radio programming on African American history and culture.

NJN partnered with the New Jersey Campus Diversity Initiative to work with university students to develop the curriculum and teach the workshop series, and to develop the web content (see Credits page). This outreach was funded by a grant from the National Center for Outreach (NCO), providing funding for public broadcasting outreach initiatives.

The New Media and African American Community initiative helps African American high-school students gain knowledge and confidence in navigating the World Wide Web. Focusing on two highly respected World Wide Web resources, PBS's African American World and Africana.com, the project teaches students how to pursue effective Internet research based on their needs and interests. By leading them to independently explore web sites centered on African American culture, history, and issues, the program empowers students to learn about and participate in their communities via the Internet.

Student Research Threads

See sample threads explored by in our pilot workshop and read comments from the participating students.

Resources for Educators

This section offers suggestions for helping students to use World Wide Web resources effectively. Many of the ideas are based on interviews and evaluations provided by workshop participants. Resources include sample workshop outlines, a list of popular African-American websites, tips for guiding students through web sites, and suggestions for designing student-friendly web sites.

NJN Programming

NJN broadcasts programming of special interest to the African American community, including the following specials and series:

Credits

Funded in part by a grant from the National Center for Outreach: Connector Grant.

The Workshops

These workshops are designed for teachers to work with students in the classroom.
The project is organized into two workshops. The sequence first establishes students' basic comfort in navigating the web and then fosters their independent navigation and research.

Workshop 1: Finding Resources

This workshop introduces students to navigating the web for research purposes by guiding them through three threads:

• Stereotyping in black film and television
• Music: from gospel to hip hop
• HBCU: The historically black college or university experience

By guiding students through a step-by-step process and reinforcing it using different threads, students learn how to formulate research questions and answer them by finding resources on the Web.

Workshop 2: Show 'N Tell

The skills learned in the first workshop are strengthened and expanded by encouraging teams of students to independently explore topics in African-American music, film, dance, literature, and art. Using PBS's African American World website as a starting point, students investigate a wide variety of resources. The students then create a presentation for their peers to share what they've learned from the sites they've visited.