Web tools to support inquiry-based learning
Suitable for teachers and students. [You will need to explore for yourself to work out which ones are best for your classroom environment.]
If you have an absolute, favourite web tool that you use to support inquiry-based learning, I’d love to hear from you. Click here to share your web tool and I will add it to the list below.
The inquiry phases referred to below come from:
Information skills in the school New South Wales Department of Education and Communities
Guided Inquiry Design: A Framework for Inquiry in Your School by Carol C Kuhlthau, Leslie K Maniotes and Anne K Caspari.
[Last updated 21 April 2013]
| Inquiry phase | Title | Description | Web link |
| Open / Immerse Defining |
Bubbl.us | Brainstorming and mind mapping tool | https://bubbl.us/ |
| Lino | Sticky note – good for brainstorming | http://en.linoit.com/ | |
| Mindmeister | Online mind mapping software | http://www.mindmeister.com/ | |
| Poll Everywhere | K12 student response system – ask a question…get a response. | http://www.polleverywhere.com/k12-student-response-system | |
| Spiderscribe | Online mind mapping and brainstorming tool | http://www.spiderscribe.net/ | |
| Stixy | Online bulletin board – also a collaborative sharing environment. | http://www.stixy.com/ | |
| Stormboard | Stormboard is an online brainstorming and collaboration platform. The name comes from a combination of brainstorm and whiteboard. | http://stormboard.com/ | |
| TED-Ed | Education talks that can be used as a stimulus to engage students in the inquiry process. | http://ed.ted.com/ | |
| Text2MindMap | Creates a mind map using text. | http://www.text2mindmap.com/ | |
| Youtube | Videos that can be used as a stimulus to engage students in the inquiry process. | http://www.youtube.com/ | |
| Padlet (Wallwisher) | Build a wall and then post notes. | http://padlet.com/ | |
| Socrative | Smart student response system that allows the teacher to interact with the students – quizzes, games, exercises. Good for pre-assessment, collecting background knowledge & reflection. | http://socrative.com/ | |
| ————— | |||
| Explore Locating |
Compfight | A Flickr search tool – an image search engine | http://compfight.com/ |
| DuckDuckGo | Easy to use search tools for students. | http://duckduckgo.com/ | |
| GoGooligans.com | A safe search tool for ‘kids & teens’ – educational / academic search engine. | http://www.lures.info/childrens_search/gogooligans.html | |
| Infotopia | A K-12 search engine. | http://www.infotopia.info/ | |
| InstaGrok | Presents your topic in an interactive visual display – interactive concept map format | http://www.instagrok.com/ | |
| Kidtopia | Search engine for elementary / primary students, especially suitable for PK-3. | http://www.kidtopia.info/ | |
| Photobucket | Photos and videos in copyright-friendly environment. | http://beta.photobucket.com/ | |
| Quintura for kids | Visual search engine | http://quinturakids.com/ | |
| Search-cube | Searches for images, videos and/or web pages and then presents it the links as a visual cube. | http://search-cube.com | |
| Simple Wikipedia | An simple online encyclopedia – great to help students develop background knowledge. | http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page | |
| SlimeKids | Search engines for kids – top 20 engines / directories. | http://www.slimekids.com/search-engines/ | |
| WikiSummarizer | Presents search results as a visual map, a list or word cloud. | http://www.wikisummarizer.com/ | |
| ————– | |||
| Identify Defining |
INFOhio | Ohio Department of Education site to support teachers | http://go.infohio.org/ |
| ————– | |||
| Gather Selecting / Organising |
Compfight | A Flickr search tool – an image search engine | http://compfight.com/ |
| Diigo | Collete and organise anything – capture, store, tag, recall and share. | http://www.diigo.com/ | |
| Evernote | A space where you can capture your notes, web clips, files, images. Collect your information into the one single place. You can also share and collaborate. | http://evernote.com/ | |
| Lino | Sticky note | http://en.linoit.com/ | |
| Netvibes | A personalised publishing platform that can capture everything you want to share. | http://www.netvibes.com/en | |
| Pearltree | This is a visual and collaborative space that lets you collect, organise and share information. | http://www.pearltrees.com/ | |
| Photobucket | Photos and videos in copyright-friendly environment. | http://beta.photobucket.com/ | |
| Pics4Learning | A safe, free image library for education. Teachers and students can use the copyright-friendly photos and images for classrooms, multimedia projects, web sites, videos, portfolios, or any other project in an educational setting. | http://www.pics4learning.com/ | |
| Polldaddy | Create surveys, polls, quizzes and collect the responses. | http://polldaddy.com/ | |
| QR codes | Provide easy access to information resources, pathfinders, websites and other tools that support your students’ learning and classroom programs. | http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ | |
| ScoopIt | Content curation that brings together a collection of website, articles, blogs, videos that are useful when exploring a topic. | http://www.scoop.it/ | |
| sitehoover | A place where you can store all your favourite web sites. | http://www.sitehoover.com/en/ | |
| Spiderscribe | Online mind mapping and brainstorming tool that lets you organise your ideas by connecting notes, files, etc. | http://www.spiderscribe.net/ | |
| Stixy | Online bulletin board – also a collaborative sharing environment. | http://www.stixy.com/ | |
| Survey Monkey | Design your surveys, collect the responses and analyse the results. | http://www.surveymonkey.com/ | |
| Padlet (Wallwisher) | Build a wall and then post your note taking, sort and organise. | http://padlet.com/ | |
| ————— | |||
| Create / Share Presenting |
Animoto | Create simple video slide shows – add pictures, text, select music and create. | http://animoto.com/ |
| Audacity | Audio recording and editing program that lets you mix, record and edit sounds. | http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ | |
| AudioBoo | Allows you to record and share audio. | http://audioboo.fm/ | |
| Blabberize | Take a picture and make it talk! Tell a story, share an idea, read a poem…. | http://blabberize.com/ | |
| Blogger | A Google tool for creating blogs. | http://www.blogger.com | |
| Bookbuilder | Use this site to create, share, publish, and read digital books that engage and support diverse learners according to their individual needs, interests, and skills. | http://bookbuilder.cast.org/ | |
| easel.ly | Create and share visual ideas online – infographic tool. | http://www.easel.ly/ | |
| Glogster | Create interactive posters – online multimedia posters with text, photos, videos, graphics, sound,drawings and more. | http://edu.glogster.com/ | |
| infogr.am | Create interactive charts and infographics | http://www.infogr.am/ | |
| Jing | Create images and videos of what you see on your computer screen and then share. | http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html | |
| Learnist | Share by curating the web. You can use videos, blogs, books, docs, images or anything on the web to explain anything. | http://learni.st/ | |
| Livebinders | Collect your resources, organise them and present them. | http://www.livebinders.com/ | |
| PB Works | Previously PBwiki – wiki platform. | http://www.pbworks.com/ | |
| Photo Peach | Create an audio slideshow. | http://photopeach.com/ | |
| Piktochart | Create engaging presentations from data and information – infographic tool | http://piktochart.com/ | |
| Pixorial | Rather than spending valuable classroom time learning a complicated video editing program, you and your students can now get straight to the project. Whether you want to film your lectures, create exciting presentations, or encourage your students’ creativity by having them shoot, edit and share their own videos, it’s all possible using this super-simple platform | http://www.pixorial.com/ | |
| Pixton | Pixton introduces the world to Click-n-Drag Comics™, a revolutionary new patented technology that gives anyone the power to create amazing comics on the web. Browse the subject area examples to see the potential. | http://www.pixton.com/schools/overview | |
| Podbean | Podcast hosting. | http://www.podbean.com/ | |
| Posterous | This is a blogging platform. | https://posterous.com/ | |
| Prezi | A dynamic presentation tool that helps you organise, present and share your ideas – zoom out for the overview and zoom in for the detail. | http://prezi.com/ | |
| Scribe | Store documents – doc, ppt, pdf, xls, etc. and share them with others. | http://www.scribd.com/ | |
| Smilebox Teacher’s Toolbox | The Smilebox Teacher’s Toolbox program is a teacher’s digital companion for creative classroom communication. Teacher’s Toolbox gives teachers at all grade levels an easy and creative way to safely share photos, videos, and classroom updates to students and parents. | http://media.smilebox.com/teachers/welcome | |
| Stormboard | Stormboard is an online brainstorming and collaboration platform. The name comes from a combination of brainstorm and whiteboard. Add ideas, photos and videos to a shared online whiteboard. | http://stormboard.com/ | |
| Storyboard generator | A creative studio space to explore storytelling and the moving image. Students can explore the moving image and create their own digital stories to share with others. | http://generator.acmi.net.au/storyboard | |
| Tagul | Tagul is a web service that enables you to create gorgeous tag clouds and embed them on your web page.Includes different shapes to match your words. | http://tagul.com/ | |
| Twiddla | Twiddla is a real-time online collaboration tool. Its beauty is in its simplicity and accessibility: no plug-ins or downloads, no need to work around complex firewalls, no advanced scheduling. It’s available 24-7 and the only requirement is a computer with an internet connection and a web browser. | http://www.twiddla.com/ | |
| Vimeo | Share your videos. | http://vimeo.com/ | |
| Voki | A talking voice character, either computer-generated or your own voice. [Also has a lesson plan database.] | http://www.voki.com/ | |
| Weebly for education | An easy way to create a website. | http://education.weebly.com/ | |
| Wikispaces | A space where you can share work and ideas, pictures and links, videos and media. Can save building a web site. | http://www.wikispaces.com/ | |
| Wordle | Create word visuals using the text you enter – suggested as a form of infographic. | http://www.wordle.net/ | |
| WordPress | Blogging platform | https://wordpress.com/ | |
| xtranormal | Animated, narrated movie maker | http://www.xtranormal.com/ | |
| ————— | |||
| Evaluate Assessing |
Edmodo | Secure social network for classroom and teacher use. Collaborate and share content and ideas. | http://www.edmodo.com/ |
| Penzu classroom | A classroom journal that you can share with your students. | http://penzu.com/content/products/classroom | |
| Socrative | Smart student response system that allows the teacher to interact with the students – quizzes, games, exercises. Good for post-assessment, reflection and check for understanding. | http://socrative.com/ | |
| VoiceThread | A collaborative, multimedia slideshow that hosts images, videos and documents and allows others to leave comments (voice, text, audio file or video). | http://voicethread.com/ | |
Additional resources
Great mind mapping apps for iPad
Scoop.it! — Web tools to support inquiry based learning
The best of teachers’ web tools by Med Karbach
Web-based version of Bloom’s Taxonomy (30+ digital tools)