Huge Increase in Bookmarking of the Gateway to 21st Century Skills

Tucson, AZ, November 19, 2008 --(PR.com)-- Hard economic times and limited educational budgets have teachers scrambling for free, quality learning resource. This fall, innovative and frugal educators have turned to specialty online Web 2.0 search tools like The Gateway to 21st Century Skills (www.thegateway.org) as a way to keep students learning. The result: in October of 2008, the Gateway experienced a jump to almost 67% of first time visitors adding the Gateway to their Internet browser list of bookmarked or favorite sites.

The Gateway to 21st Century Skills provides free online access to a collection of over 50,000 learning resources provided by organizations like NASA, the National Science Foundation, PBS, the National Science Digital Library and more than 700 other contributors. Resources are cataloged using state-of-the-art processes to provide fast searches and easy access through Web 2.0 technologies.

The Gateway to 21st Century Skills is managed by non-profit JES & Co. and is sponsored by the National Education Association (NEA). “Our teacher members are so fortunate that NEA saw the value in the collection and has continued to sponsor the Gateway. Without NEA’s sponsorship, all the work of creating this wonderful collection would have gone down the tube when the Federal Department of Education dropped the project in 2005,” says Diny Golder, JES & Co.’s Executive Director. “In these tough economic times teachers really need quality, free teaching materials. We are contacted daily by teachers that really appreciate NEA’s support. Because of their support, teachers have a place to turn when their districts don’t have the budget for good learning tools and that is the rule these days, not the exception,” Golder continued.

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