Featured App of the Month - InstaGrok
Generally speaking...

InstaGrok is an interactive search engine for learners. It not only finds quality educational materials on any topic, but presents information in an engaging visual way, and helps students develop research and curation skills.
InstaGrok displays the context of any topic as a dynamic, visual web of important concepts and relationships. Students navigate this web based on their particular interests and adjust difficulty level based on their knowledge level. They begin to grasp the topic by looking at the Key Facts, and then dive deeper into quality educational websites, videos and images. Students can personalize the graph by pinning artifacts to it. Auto-generated quizzes offer stimulating active recall practice that re-enforces learning. Built-in journals help develop research and synthesis skills, and allow teachers to track students' progress.
InstaGrok displays the context of any topic as a dynamic, visual web of important concepts and relationships. Students navigate this web based on their particular interests and adjust difficulty level based on their knowledge level. They begin to grasp the topic by looking at the Key Facts, and then dive deeper into quality educational websites, videos and images. Students can personalize the graph by pinning artifacts to it. Auto-generated quizzes offer stimulating active recall practice that re-enforces learning. Built-in journals help develop research and synthesis skills, and allow teachers to track students' progress.
According to instaGrok...

6 Ways That Sharing Concept Maps Will Rock Your World Posted on September 26, 2012 by Andrew
In our previous blog post we announced that users can now share custom concept maps. To recap, here’s how you do it:
1. For Teachers Let’s say you’re starting a unit on the United States Revolutionary War. Your students are supposed to write a paper about an important figure from the period. The last thing you need more students saying that they have no idea where to start. Why not jump start the process? Hop on instaGrok, research ‘United States War of Independence’, add links to sources you like, and send the concept map to your class. Voilà: no more excuses. (OK, fewer excuses.)
2. For Students So your teacher has assigned you a paper on a Revolutionary War figure, eh? And you pick this guy named Crispus Attucks. Your teacher doesn’t want you to wait ’til the last minute to write your report; she wants evidence that you’re doing research. While you would never procrastinate, allow us to help: why not turn in an instaGrok showing what you’re including, what you’re leaving out, and which sources you’re using?
3. For Travelers Want to convince your friend that Cabo San Lucas is a fantastic spot for a vacation, but she isn’t one to be taken in by the typical travel websites? Maybe those sites spend too much time talking about tequila and nightlife, and not enough on surfing and outdoor activities? Solution: make a concept map and jazz it up with activities that are going to interest her, not some generic traveler.
4. For Businesses Perhaps your company is considering expanding into a new field. You need to do some competitive analysis to convince your coworkers that this is a great idea. For instance, I might want to persuade my colleague Kirill that we should forget this whole ‘research engine’ thing and go compete against eBay.com instead. And Kirill has never heard of eBay (and, he swears, does not buy Star Wars action figures there). Kirill likes to see things for himself, so I’ll give him a custom concept map to get him started.
5. For Patients Recently my mom had knee-replacement surgery. She likes to be an informed patient, but the doctor was no help. So off to Google she went. She was confronted with a mountain of information: she had hundreds of links to read, and it was up to her to figure out how all the concepts connected. Wouldn’t it have been nice if the doctor’s office had put together a curated collection of links, facts, and images so that my mom could have understood the procedure?
6. For Everyone Got a great way to use instaGrok? Drop us a line. We’d love to hear about it.
In our previous blog post we announced that users can now share custom concept maps. To recap, here’s how you do it:
- Research a topic on instaGrok.
- Customize the concept maps with key facts, links, and videos.
- Share it and show the world how much you know.
1. For Teachers Let’s say you’re starting a unit on the United States Revolutionary War. Your students are supposed to write a paper about an important figure from the period. The last thing you need more students saying that they have no idea where to start. Why not jump start the process? Hop on instaGrok, research ‘United States War of Independence’, add links to sources you like, and send the concept map to your class. Voilà: no more excuses. (OK, fewer excuses.)
2. For Students So your teacher has assigned you a paper on a Revolutionary War figure, eh? And you pick this guy named Crispus Attucks. Your teacher doesn’t want you to wait ’til the last minute to write your report; she wants evidence that you’re doing research. While you would never procrastinate, allow us to help: why not turn in an instaGrok showing what you’re including, what you’re leaving out, and which sources you’re using?
3. For Travelers Want to convince your friend that Cabo San Lucas is a fantastic spot for a vacation, but she isn’t one to be taken in by the typical travel websites? Maybe those sites spend too much time talking about tequila and nightlife, and not enough on surfing and outdoor activities? Solution: make a concept map and jazz it up with activities that are going to interest her, not some generic traveler.
4. For Businesses Perhaps your company is considering expanding into a new field. You need to do some competitive analysis to convince your coworkers that this is a great idea. For instance, I might want to persuade my colleague Kirill that we should forget this whole ‘research engine’ thing and go compete against eBay.com instead. And Kirill has never heard of eBay (and, he swears, does not buy Star Wars action figures there). Kirill likes to see things for himself, so I’ll give him a custom concept map to get him started.
5. For Patients Recently my mom had knee-replacement surgery. She likes to be an informed patient, but the doctor was no help. So off to Google she went. She was confronted with a mountain of information: she had hundreds of links to read, and it was up to her to figure out how all the concepts connected. Wouldn’t it have been nice if the doctor’s office had put together a curated collection of links, facts, and images so that my mom could have understood the procedure?
6. For Everyone Got a great way to use instaGrok? Drop us a line. We’d love to hear about it.