Clusty and Grokker - Unique Alternatives to the Almighty Google Search

Many students initiate any and all research projects with a Google Search. While this generally provides a plethora of responses, many of the hits are only loosely connected to the subject, or are completely irrelevant. Google is a very powerful tool for research; however, there are several alternatives to Google that each have a unique way of organizing the search results.

Clusty, at first glance, looks like any other search engine. The difference is in how results are reported. The full list of search results appears on the right side of the window. On the left, results are clustered by subject. This allows students (and teachers) to look at results that are more likely relevant to the particular issue or topic they are researching.

You can see an example of the results page below.



Grokker provides two options for viewing search results. The first is an Outline View that groups the results by keyword or subject. You can see below the results from a search on Project Based Learning.



You also can select the Map View which provides a visual representation of the categories and sub-categories that appeared in the search results. You can see an example of this below.