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InstaGrok Educational Search Engine

January 30, 2012 8:00 am John Sowash

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Author:

John Sowash

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#newteacher research search tools

Can you define the word “Grok?”

InstaGrok is a developing answer-engine that is specifically designed for the education market. The mission of InstaGrok is to teach 21st Century research and curation skills in a safe, age appropriate environment. InstaGrok is commercial free and organizes search results according to themes and concepts. In a way, InstaGrok is similar to Wolfram|Alpha as it provides answers and information rather than a list of links. Using the search box, type in any term or idea that you are interested in learning about. The results returned are divided into five categories:

Overview
Websites
Videos
Q&A
Quizzes

The results returned are derived algorithmically which means the database is as wide as the internet. There are three features of InstaGrok that are especially noteworthy and should excite educators:

InstaGrok's version of the "Wonder Wheel"

“WonderWheel”
Anyone who enjoyed using the Google WonderWheel (RIP) will appreciate the concept map feature of InstaGrok. Much more sophisticated that its predecessor, this concept map includes the ability to click on related terms or the ability to see the relationship between two words by clicking on their connecting lines.

Dynamic Leveling

All results returned from an InstaGrok search can be sorted by academic level. The current options include “College”, “High School” and “School.” All of the content returned in a search are clearly marked with its associated level. Leveling is determined by vocabulary and work complexity.

Quiz Questions

InstaGrok is able to dynamically create multiple choice quiz questions from relevant content. Students can answer questions and receive immediate feedback on the answer as well as the ability to read the content from which the question was generated. This is a very exciting feature that teacher will appreciate.

The next time you or your students are research information, give InstaGrok a try! Let us know what you think.

What do you think?

1 Comment

Kirill Kireyev

November 20, 2012
9:47 pm

If you haven’t checked out instaGrok lately – please do so – it looks very different (and better) these days!

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