Wednesday, July 8, 2009

WolframAlpha

One of the 1st things I'm going to look up after posting this? What the heck is a "wolfram alpha" ?!?

What it is, thanks to Ms. Michetti at connect. create. question. is the next level of search engine/encyclopedia, a possibly overwhelming fount of information, the answer to my constant exhortation to sons and students of "look it up!" It is WolframAlpha .

There is a cool "Overview Video" that shows a ton of examples, some way over my head, but it looks amazing with the potential to really engage students in exploring and discerning information, rather than simply copying text from Wikipedia. I'm going to try some real world, relevant to 2nd-6th grade topics and see what happens...

the 10 minutes later update... Well, found out I have 113th ranked name for US births; lots of info on "Boston Red Sox", "Transformers", "Grizzly Bear" and today's date (sunset scheduled for 8:01) but not so much for "Tony Hawk", "Kings of Leon", or even "American Revolution"... definitely like the Scrabble/crossword puzzle cheating assisting potential: put in a word with missing letters, it supplies the possibilities.

Let me know what you think. How can this be used in the classroom?
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