Welcome to GEM
GEM is for everyone interested in learning through museums and heritage.
We are based in the UK but have members around the world.
GEM Conference 2012
Making the Case
4-6 September 2012, Exeter
In these challenging times it is essential to make a compelling case for heritage education – one that stands up to rigorous scrutiny. This year’s GEM conference will help heritage management and education professionals explore, identify and articulate the unique value of heritage education, and the positive impacts it has on a wide variety of audiences.
Explore how to make the case effectively to external and internal audiences using tools for measuring benefits, outcomes and costs. Become familiar with gathering evidence for a business case, and learn ways of presenting the case to senior staff, stakeholders, visitors and the media. Discuss ways of putting a monetary value against benefits or appreciating the “lost opportunity” costs.
GEM’s conferences are both practical and relevant, and the experiences and opportunities offered engage and inspire professionals from career-entry to management level. They are also a fantastic networking opportunity and great fun.
We shall be putting calls out for proposals to run breakout sessions and workshops over the next few weeks. We shall also be asking for proposals to run the ever-popular member presentations. Full details of the conference will be published by the end of May.
GEM Conference 2011
Thinking Ahead & Staying Afloat
6-8 September 2011, Norwich
How can we think more strategically and plan ahead to ensure we more than stay afloat in the current challenging times?
Reports of GEM's 2011 annual conference appeared in the
November 2011 edition
of the Journal of Education.
Read John Reeve's
impressions of conference
here.
Laying the foundations of heritage education training
John Stevenson, GEM's director, spoke at the ICOM-CECA conference, Zagreb, September 2011 about how GEM has been responding to changes across the heritage sector, and about GEM’s integrated approach to the training of heritage educators. He reflected on heritage education as a profession, and on what we as heritage educators do and how effective we are. He suggested that we needed more research into the effectiveness of the teaching which we do. Download a PDF of the talk (104KB)
Cultural learning is too valuable to lose
John Reeve, GEM Chair
This is not a whinge or special pleading at a time of savage cuts, but a wake-up call about cuts in funding to learning services in museums, galleries and heritage.
These appear to reflect a shift in attitudes to learning and a step
back to earlier assumptions about where learning belongs. Not only
are learning and outreach posts going, but whole departments and
teams. That is even before the full impact of the cuts is felt
nationally and locally.
Read more