With this step done, look for the implementation of more features, a revamped look and feel and greater opportunities to interact with other Gateway community members!

The technology behind the Gateway searches has always been superior to Yahoo or Google-like searches. Our unique way of tagging the 50,000+ learning resource descriptions in the Gateway makes it possible to find just the right learning resource using characteristic that are geared specifically to the needs of educators. Our faceted search is not the one-size-fits-all approach that major search engines use in their efforts. We can target educator's needs because the Gateway and GEM were built with educators needs specifically in mind.

Try a search on Google for a 5th grade lesson plan for math. Today, that search will return 249,000 items. You can go into the advance search and further reduce that return, if you know the specific terms you are looking for. That is the issue. What term do you enter to get what you want? One has to guess and there are no clues as to what might be productive.

On the Gateway, you simply select the subject, "math." Today on the Gateway you will get a return of 4354 items and a list of “facets” or clues as to what those resource offer. Click the 5th grade button and the list is immediately reduced to 1494 items. And, another list of “faceted” clues that will help you find just what you want. You will see a list of pertinent keywords that are specific to educator’s needs. Another facet tells you the type of lesson plans that are included in the search return. Another facet tells you the lesson plans that are classified as containing an element of educational technology. Another will highlight those lesson plans that work well as remedial lessons.

In other word, the Gateway search facilitates the discovery of learning resource instead of requiring the user to guess what might bring you a relevant return in a search engine that is not specifically designed for educator’s needs.

Now, this preciseness and convenience of revealing the possibilities does have a price. That price is that it takes more “computer horsepower” to make it happen is this educator oriented faceted search. I am sure that we have all had, in the past, our times in using the Gateway when we wished it would work faster. And now, with our new platform and equipment it does work faster! If you haven’t done a search on the Gateway recently, you owe it to your self to give it a whirl. I know you will be impressed.

The recent surge in membership applications would confirm this too. People like how it is working and find that the value justifies the few minutes it takes to fill out a membership profile.

Gateway membership allows you to make comments about the items that you find. You can keep them to yourself or you can share them with other educators for a multiplying effect on the information available about a particular learning resource. Sharing helps to build the community and if you check some of the biographical sketches that people submit with their profile, you will find you are in very good company indeed. They are overwhelmingly professionals with a desire to move education forward, to maximize the contribution that they are making and to foster a 21st century environment for education as a whole. Just check the list of some of the new members at the end of this update called “Who’s Joining the Gateway.”

Our new operating environment has boosted the Gateway’s value by saving you time and allowing the rapid and precise selection of valuable learning and teaching resources. You are getting the best of the best and you can thank NEA for making it possible through their support and sponsorship.

What’s New?
New information about 21st century learning resources is being added every week to the Gateway. Don’t miss out on these great new additions.

NEA has partnered with the GEM Exchange, Gateway to Educational Materials, and JES & Co to support Gateway to 21st Century Skills, a website that combines state-of the art search technologies and a complete database of state academic standards for core subjects. The Gateway is your link to the resources you need to make learning meaningful and fun for your students.

Here are just a few more recent examples of new items that you can find on the Gateway for you and your students:

Johnson Lake Mine: Mining for Tungsten in Nevada's Snake Range

Explore both how tungsten was mined and used at the turn of the 20th century and also how archeologists piece the past together from artifacts and other archeological evidence. This lesson could be used in U.S. history course units on the turn of the 20th-century mining boom, the First World War, and historical archeology.

Birthplace of John F. Kennedy: Home of the Boy Who Would Be President

This lesson can be used as a biographical study, an introduction to the Kennedy presidency and the turbulent sixties, or as part of a unit on post-World War II American history. Students will work with primary and secondary sources and will strengthen their skills in analytical reading and interpretation related to history.

Thematic Maps of Your School

This lesson develops a student's understanding of how to design, research, draw, and use thematic maps to depict geographic information and problems. It should follow fast on a general introduction to thematic maps. The exercise is a good stepping stone to a mapping of your town, and then to country maps. If it is used in a year-long geography course, it should be done early in the year.

The Moon

In this interactive activity, students will review details about the moon through children's literature. Students will also be responsible for collecting data about the moon and its phases. Finally, the students will produce original podcasts to display their data.

Skillful Slideshows

During this technology-based lesson, students learn how to create slideshow presentations that are creative and inviting to the audience. They use fonts, graphics, effects, etc, to capture audience attention.

The Color of Words

This lesson is a word processing basic skills lesson. It is designed to introduce students to formatting text. The formatting concepts include: changing text alignment, changing text color and changing font size.

Identifying Landforms

In order to understand the essential question of “How can photographs illustrate landforms?” students review definitions of geographic landform terms on-line and apply their knowledge to images of local landforms. Students use computer software to label images and post their work to a virtual bulletin board.

Newbery Award

This unit will introduce the history of the Newbery Award to students. The selection process will be discussed. Students will also visit websites and the library to select a Newbery book to read. Finally, students will give book talks to accompany slideshows they have created.

Quickly learn to search the huge collection of free learning resource. (Click this link to view our video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYqho-SN-m4)

Our brief, seven minute, instructional video is now available on the home page of the Gateway. It’s never been easier to boost your professional skills, add more fun and individualized instruction to your repertoire of competencies. Join our cadre of 21st century educators today.

Make your search for resources from the Gateway or great benefit from your NEA membership easier and faster. Simply visit: http://www.thegateway.org and download the National Education Association Toolbar from the link in the middle of the page. The toolbar is ready for you! It easy and it’s FREE!

Did You Know?
The Gateway to 21st Century Skills receives thousands of visits a month from dedicated educators all over the world. Tuesday and Wednesday were the busiest days for the Gateway in the month of January. In fact, the Gateway is such a valuable and powerful tool that over 62.7% of the visitors added the Gateway to their browser Favorites or Bookmarks! In the last month, over 50.1% of the traffic came from people who have already bookmarked the Gateway to 21st Century Skills. Spread the word and help your fellow educators to realize the tremendous value NEA has provided for its members.

Gateway to 21st Century Skills Statistics for January 2009
Lots and lots of educators are finding and utilizing the Gateway. Every month since we became sponsored by the NEA, we have experienced double digit percentage increases over the previous year’s figures. The Gateway Community keeps getting bigger and we keep breaking records! January 2009 traffic to the Gateway hit approximately 55,682 visits. In the month of January 2009, adjusted measures of traffic showed visitors viewed 173,913 pages and created 1,884,091 hits.

The Gateway to 21st Century Skills receives thousands of visits a month from dedicated educators all over the world. The community is developing into a diverse and interesting group with tremendous talent to share! Come and join us as we pioneer the way to the vision of a 21st century education. Become a member and network with other educators. Use the information from the Gateway learning resources in other Web 2.0 friendly applications, your portfolio, store it on your calendar for easy planning or share it with your student, parents and administrator. The Gateway is here to help you easily meet your needs and make your teaching day easier!

Spread the word, invite a friend and help your fellow educators to participate in this special community that NEA has provided for its members.

If your NEA state affiliate website doesn’t link to the Gateway to 21st Century Skills as a resource on your state website, they are surely missing the 21st Century boat. Tell them you need resources and a link to the Gateway! In terms of a teaching tool, it is one of the greatest benefits that NEA has ever made available to its members.

Are Your Members Using the Gateway?
Iowa and Georgia are the newest additions to our growing list of states and organizations that display their logos on customized versions of the Gateway! Both of these new states and Connecticut Retired Education Association, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Wyoming, Wyoming Student Education Association, Hawaii, Maryland, Colorado, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Washington, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, South Dakota and Tennessee and have all created versions of the Gateway that displays the state affiliate logos.

And now, not only will your affiliate members be greeted with a view of your logo but anyone who declares that they hail from your branded state will also see that affiliate’s logo. This will underscore your local commitment to provide the members of the profession with the tools and resources they need to succeed in driving improvements to student achievement.

We want to hear from you. What would you like to see added to the Gateway? What improvements would you like to see? Send your suggestions, thoughts and observations on how we can make the Gateway to 21st Century Skills a more valuable tool for you, your students and your fellow teachers. Contact Bruce Walker at brucew@jesandco.org.

Who’s Joining the Gateway?

From students and pre-service teachers to experienced educators in all parts of educational enterprise, everyone finds value in the Gateway collection of learning resources. What a tremendously diverse and interesting group of people find their way to the Gateway! The community is growing in size and harnessing the awesome power that comes from a huge set of life skills. To show you what we at the Gateway have noticed we did some research on the diversity of members in the biographies written by new members applying for Gateway membership.

Here are some excerpts from the biographies of recent Gateway applications for membership. Members show their support for the Gateway by joining and it is Free! Membership allows you to make notes and comment about the resources you find on the Gateway. You can share those observations with your peers or make comments that are only for your use. It’s like your own personal Gateway to over 50,000 quality learning resources.

M.D. - CT
Graduate student at Southern Connecticut State University enrolled in Masters program with Elementary school certification.

K.C. - IL
Clinical psychologist and adjunct faculty at Roosevelt University in Chicago, IL. I often teach courses that examine inequities in society, including Psychology of Racism and Psychology of Women.

N.I. – TX
A recent graduate from the University of Texas. I am currently seeking my teaching certification though an alternative certification program.

R.C. - CA
I am an Instructor with SOCALROC in Torrance California. I Instruct Medical Insurance Billing and Pharmacy Technician Classes. I also am a licensed and registered Pharmacy Technician as well as a licensed and certified Medical Insurance Billing Specialist.

C.H. - NY
I am an urban educator, currently teaching 9-12 Social Studies. Very interested in technology and 21st Century learning and teaching.
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B.M. - MD
I am an educator at a local community college and a grandmother of a 3rd grader who is reading below level. I would like to give her some assistance with reading and mathematics.

J.A. - Australia
Curriculum Resource Officer with the Department of Education: Western Australia

M.S. - MA
I am a student in the College of professional studies, working on completing the Ed.D program requirements

M.M. - LA
I am a Northwestern Library Certification student. I am currently the librarian at Oakdale High School where I am in the process of completing the renovations, cleaning and weeding of the library's old collection. I am completing my certification this spring and I am looking forward to really transforming the library into the media center of the future.

A.C. - NC
I am a literacy specialist working with struggling readers. I am looking for interesting ways to bring hard to reach kids into the exciting world of reading.

L.T. – SC
I am in my master's program for gifted education in order to teach Secondary English in high school. I hope to learn about gifted children's needs before entering the classroom.

J.E. - MT
I am the director of an after school program in a small town in Montana. We provide care to children from the local elementary school in addition to providing hours and training for high school volunteers of our program. Our program includes healthy snacks, homework and tutoring time, art, music, and physical activities.

C.P. -TN
I am a career professional transitioning into the teaching field. I am looking for all types of help with the certification process along with any information that will help me understand this new field. I am working with the "Teaching Fellows" program and will be interviewing with them this month.