Instagrok

Tech Showcase Display #17

Instagrok at SMAMS

Mr. Henry’s class teamed up with Ms. Stolarski to use Instagrok to allow students to explore space and rocketry topics before getting into more specific concepts.

InstaGrok is a search engine that produces concept maps.

Each word has a variety of resources sorted into media that can be pinned onto the concept map. 

In addition, you can adjust the difficulty (harder words versus easier terms)

During this class, students would use Instagrok to generate a concept map. Then they evaluated the sources that came up in their search. They also had a chance to explore the different types of results that came up in their map.

Then using the words generated in the concept map, they completed a word splash about the vocab that they just discovered. This tech tool is a great brainstorming tool for research projects, a great concept map generator for students learning about a topic for the first time, and a great alternative for Google for students who are overloaded with Google’s “Wall of Text”

As several teachers get into hyperdocs and multimedia text sets*, many of us will be looking for different ways to allow students to explore topics. Instagrok is a great addition to that tool kit.

*different resources that align with a topic that allow students to explore and form their own opinion. Can be text, videos, thinglinks, primary documents, images, concept maps, library databases with scholarly articles.