Excellent Visual Search Engine for Students

November 7, 2014
InstaGrok is an interactive search engine that allows students to search for any topic in a visually engaging way. When students conduct a search query, InstaGrok finds the relevant information related to that query and present it in the form of interactive concept maps (grok). Using InstaGrok, students will be able to explore educational content including videos and images, evaluate sources, collect evidence and use it to craft a search report.

InstaGrok also allows students to take notes while researching a topic and provides teachers with a section where they can review students work and create new assignments together with the ability to guides students throughout their research project. Watch the videos below to learn more about InstaGrok.

1- How to Use InstaGrok with students in class , by Pascale Ngo

2- Instagrok demo

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3 Great Search Engines Designed Specifically for Students

October 29, 2014
Being able to conduct efficient searches using different search engines is one of the essential component of the digital literacy we talked about earlier.Together with this, students are also required to develop necessary skills that will enable them to evaluate and assess the authenticity and reliability of web resources they are drawing on in their research. The net is teeming with all kinds of content and some of it is nothing but junk or, to borrow Howard Rheingold phrase, "information crap". EdTech and Mlearning has a whole section dedicated to search tips, ideas and tools to help your students become "smart  searchers", check it out to learn more.

Today, I am sharing with you three search engines I learned from Getting Smart designed specifically for students. These search engines are manned and monitored by librarians, search experts and in the case of iPL2 by students.

1- iPl2

ipl2 is a public service organization and a learning/teaching environment. To date, thousands of students and volunteer library and information science professionals have been involved in answering reference questions for our Ask an ipl2 Librarian service and in designing, building, creating and maintaining the ipl2's collections. It is through the efforts of these students and volunteers that the ipl2 continues to thrive to this day.

2- SweetSearch

SweetSearch is operated by a team of research experts, librarians and teachers who evaluated and approve anything that you find on the website. SweetSearch helps students find outstanding information, faster. It enables them to determine the most relevant results from a list of credible resources, and makes it much easier for them to find primary sources. SweetSearch  excludes not only obvious spam sites, but also marginal sites that read well, but lack academic or journalistic rigor.

3- Kids Click

KidsClick is owned and run by the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) at Kent State University. KidsClick! is a web search site designed for kids by librarians - with kid-friendly results!

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