By Maxine

grok (v): to understand thoroughly and intuitively

instaGrok creates a whole new approach for students in searching, gathering, and using information. The creators describe InstaGrok as a tool that:

• finds age-appropriate educational content on any topic presented with interactive multimedia interfaces
• generates quiz questions based on student’s research activity and skill level
• supports creation of research journals and concept maps for learning assessment

An initial search brings up a visual concept map incorporating key terms for your topic. As you click on different search terms in the concept map the results change to match.

To your right you have a menu of information types that displays content for your search within the following areas:

• Key facts
• Websites 
• Videos
• Images
• Quizzes

Clicking on the ‘more’ button of each menu choice provides you with further detail about the content retrieved. For example clicking more on the website list provides you with annotated preview information about each site, subject tags, and the ability to sort the results by level of difficulty by using the slide bar at the top of the screen beside the ABC blackboard icon.

By creating a user account and logging into the InstaGrok site you can also utilise the Journal and pinning functions. Within your journal space you can pin different pieces of content from the menu of information on the right hand side. This can include excerpts from the key facts, websites, videos and images. Students can add their own notes and annotations to their journal and share it with teachers via email or print.

As sites are visited from the various results lists InstaGrok records these on the Visited page. The history button on the top menu allows you to revisit your searches where you can pin further content and edit your journal.

Watch the video on the InstaGrok homepage to see how it all works. Download a pdf brochure

How could you use this tool with staff and students in your school?