research-tools

= Research Tools = toc

Digital Public Library of America
A collection of publicly available photos, manuscripts, books, sounds, and movies/videos. . . over a million. A good resource in conjunction with loc.gov. Search by keyword, date, or location. Partner apps are worth a look, I especially like the Culture Collage.

Gooru
Science, math, social studies, & language arts resources for 5 th -12 th grades. Teachers & students can find collections of multimedia resources, digital textbooks, videos, games, & quizzes created by educators.

instaGrok
Designed with education in mind, instaGrok presents information in an interactive visual map, showing the relationships between key facts & concepts. Students use a wonder wheel to show search results, which gives them lists of key facts, websites, videos, images, quizzes, & a glossary. Students can click on the secondary circles to get more information, refine, or alter their search topic. The quizzes are multiple choice, classroom ready questions to test the student’s knowledge over the topic, which tells them if they got it right or wrong. There is a “more” link for students to find out additional information about the questions & answers. When students register for a free account, they can then “pin” the information they want into a built-in notebook where they can add their own notes. There is also a difficulty slider to adjust the difficulty & amount of material.

instaGrok is free, but there is a premium paid account called, “instaGrok Classroom,” which also is available through Edmodo. This premium feature includes a teacher dashboard, which allows teachers to monitor & comment on their students’ activity.

This is a fantastic search & research tool for students, & because of the difficulty slider it allows this tool to be used with upper elementary to high school students.

//Last Updated - May 2014//