A wonderful new way to research topics. The students type in the subject, the site 'groks' and returns with a concept map that can be made more complex or simple by dragging the green dot (beside the scientist situated at the top of the screen). Finally, a site that differentiates content for students! The concept map can be expanded by selecting any of the yellow concept dots, and facts, videos, websites, images, etc. can be found on the right side of the screen. A journal tab beside the graph tab allows student to do some writing to record their learning and can be copied into a Google Doc for later reference. French Revolution, organelles, succession, polynomials, Jane Eyre, composition . . . this site has much to offer. The "Quizzes" tools gives you classroom-ready quiz questions on your search term.
Tip: You can use the little slider at the top of the search results screen to adjust how detailed your results are. You can go from the ABC chalkboard to the Einstein-y looking fella.
Sweet Search is a search engine that searches only the sites that have been reviewed and approved by a team of librarians, teachers, and research experts. In all there are 35,000 websites that have been reviewed and approved by Sweet Search. In addition to the general search engine, Sweet Search offers five niche search engines. The niche search engines are for Social Studies, Biographies, SweetSites (organized by grade and subject area), School Librarians, and Sweet Search 4 Me (for elementary school students). (Richard Byrne)
Twurdy is search tool that automatically displays the readability of your search results for you. Twurdy uses a simple color-coded system to indicate how easy or difficult it is to read a particular website in your search results. There are three types of Twurdy searches; Just Twurdy, Simple Twurdy, and Twurdy with Pop. Here's how Twurdy defines the three search types:
Just Twurdy - searches using Twurdy's basic algorithm with medium speed and medium results.
Simple Twurdy - searches using Twurdy's simple algorithm for fast speed but less accurate results
Twurdy with Pop - searches using Twurdy's most complex algorithm which includes looking up the popularity of words within the text. It has a slower speed with more accurate results. (Richard Byrne)