A GEM of an Idea

The Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM) is a Consortium effort to provide educators with quick and easy access to thousands of educational resources found on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites.

The site is designed to help teachers access lesson plans and instructional material available on the Internet. The targeted search engine allows teachers to select a grade level as well as a type of search (simple, or browse lists of subjects or keywords); the search plumbs the teaching resources of federal, state, university, commercial and nonprofit organizations. Individuals and organizations with sites that have lesson ideas and materials are invited to submit their resources for possible inclusion in the database.

If you are a teacher or an administrator, this is a web site well worth visiting again and again.

GEM Consortium Members consist of two main groups. The largest in number are individuals and organizations that make their educational resources available to educators through The Gateway. The second group are users of the GEM metadata standard, or organizations who promote the Gateway as a valuable resource to their constituents. Membership in the Consortium is through application to the GEM Administrative Group. There are no membership fees. If you fit the above criteria and wish to join the GEM Consortium simply fill out an application form.

Educators do not need to be members of the Consortium to search for educational resources or use the services provided by GEM.

How it works

If you are comfortable with the internet, you'll find GEM easy to use.

Once at the GEM website, start with the box on the right side of the screen "Search the GEM Catalog."

Type in the word "soccer" for this example.

GEM will respond with the first ten of 67 lessons.

You will notice that each lesson contains:

• A lesson name
• A description
• The "Medium" of the lesson (text, html, application, pdf, etc.)
• The Type of lesson (project, lesson plan, activity, etc.)
• The Level of the lesson (eg. grade level)

The real beauty of the search is in the box under the "Search" box. Here you will see a summary of your search (67 matching full text contains "soccer") and a way to refine your search. If you don't want to wade through the 67 lessons, simply click on the grade level of your choice. Selecting "Level 10" will narrow your soccer search to 15 lessons. Selecting the "Level 4" will give you 28 lessons. If you are looking for activities for your students, look under "Type" and select "Activity" to get 32 results.

A very neat idea. And it's free!

Try the Gateway to Educational Materials.