Oh sure, Google’s great and all…until you realize it’s not perfect. Google is designed for everyone on the planet. But what if Google was totally rebuilt with education in mind? It’d probably look exactly like instaGrok.
InstaGrok is a discovery and learning engine that’s captured my attention for the past week or so. After putting it through it’s paces, I’m happy to endorse it and encourage you to give it a whirl.
Without going into too much detail, instaGrok basically lets you punch in any search term (I’d recommend using a subject matter or item you’re learning about) and get a neatly formatted and interactive experience as search results.
The Killer Feature(s)
The killer feature to me is not the fun interactive ‘related terms’ web or the websites and images that pop up with each search. It’s the ‘Quizzes’ tool that gives you classroom-ready quiz questions on your search term. It’s downright amazing. If you’re looking to freshen up your tried-and-true quizzes, try adding in some of the quiz questions offered by instaGrok. Not every question is going to be the most useful, but many that I’ve seen were thought-provoking and useful. They’re multiple choice questions right now but hopefully they’ll add in other question formats down the line.
What It Looks Like
Below are a couple images that show you some sample searches I conducted. As you can see, you get a whole lot for very little work. In fact, you get more information than you would from any Google search. That’s been a rare feet with Wolfram Alpha being the only other exception that pops to mind.
Quick Tip:You can use the little slider at the top of the search results screen to adjust how detailed your results are. You can go from the ABC chalkboard to the Einstein-y looking fella. Love this feature!
Prediction: Google will buy instaGrok in under one year.
Search For ‘Math‘
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Search For ‘Project-Based Learning‘
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I need a kid-safe search engine for 2nd grade animal reports. I’ve yet to find one with great images, which are required for the report. Unfortunately, as good as this one looks, not many images. Any ideas?
Have you tried National Geographic for kids? Enchantedlearning.com?
@teacher333 Both of those are great resources, but have no image filter–students get articles, websites, some images. For visual students, I want that row of images that pop out at them. Thanks for the reminder of both–especially EnchantedLearning. I’ve gotten away from that one.
@AskATechTeacher try pics4learning.com http://www.pics4learning.com/. Another awesome resource (paid) that our district uses is http://www.pebblego.com.
@edutechconnect Pic4Learning looks really good. Thanks for telling me about it.