Launch of the New Gateway to 21st Century Skills

JES & Co. announced today the launch of a robust build of the Gateway to 21st Century Skills (Gateway). The homepage (www.thegateway.org) has been simplified with easy to use icons. A daily contribution from Today in Literature provides a daily calendar of engaging stories about literary history. A resource recommendation engine will allow user searches to return a more-like-this list of similar resources. The new Gateway will also feature one click access to current and past weekly educational topics covered by Gateway columnists, Joann and Peggy.

If desired, login and registration can be done through users’ Facebook accounts, creating a seamless platform to share and discuss resources with others. Registered users can now search the Gateway by standards, including the Common Core State Standards. Resources are correlated to the Common Core State Standards on a regular basis and will be featured for quick access. Registered users can post comments and bookmark their favorite resources. Registered users are also encouraged to rate resources they have used.

The Gateway News, located front and center on the homepage, keeps visitors current on Gateway events, news, and updates. The site features a rotating marquee near the top of the homepage. This marquee will be used to highlight sponsors’ messages and provide one click access to both popular columns, Joann’s Picks and Peggy’s Corner.

“It was time for us to rebuild the Gateway. The Gateway receives between 2-4 million hits per month. The majority of hits result in returning traffic with expanded search criteria. Even with the high number returning users, the Gateway sees over 30,000 new unique users each month,” explained Diny Golder, Executive Director of JES & Co. “Our technical team decided that in addition to the new user features built into the new Gateway, that we needed to physically move the Gateway to Acquia, where Twitter, eBay, and PayPal live, to support the large demand of Gateway resources made by the education community. We have now tightly coupled the Gateway to the Achievement Standards Network providing even a greater number of resources correlated to open source, open access State and Common Core State Standards,” continued Golder.