Promoted by the US Department of Education, The Gateway to Educational Material (GEM) is a consortium of organizations and individuals providing access to a metadata catalogue of over 50,000 educational resources, including online lessons plans, best practices, projects, tutorials, research exercises and information about online communities offering further educational resources. The GEM search engine is outstanding. Results of each search are organized by subject, type, grade level, keywords, mediator, beneficiary and price code, to further refine the search. Users can also browse these sub-topics with the aid of a glossary. Information are gathered from various sources, including federal, state, university, non profit and commercial internet sites. Organizations and individual educators are encouraged to join (for free) the GEM consortium and share their educational resources, after a revision process. Educational resources are usually accessible online through a direct link. In the field of social science alone, GEM offers a collection of over 13,000 items. The Gateway offers various tools to support users, from beginners to experts. Its catalogue offers both free and not for free educational resources. However, free resources dominate the catalogue’s wide offer.
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