An Introduction to Ask An Expert Sites

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Objectives

 

3

An Introduction to Expert Sites

 

4

Pitsco Ask An Expert

5

Ask Jeeves

6

More Ask an Expert Sites

 

7

On Your Own Activities

 

8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Objectives

 

Upon completion of this unit, participants will be able to:

 

 

·        Explain and use Ask An Expert Web Sites including:

o       Pitsco

o       Ask Jeeves

o       Ask Dr. Math

o       CIESE Ask an Expert Site

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Introduction to Ask An Expert Sites

 

 

 

 

 

Use expert Web sites when students are looking for answers to real life questions. Students electronically pose questions to experts in the field. Some of the most popular and useful expert sites follow:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pitsco Ask an Expert Site

 

http://www.askanexpert.com/

 

 

 

Askanexpert.com connects you with hundreds of real world experts, ranging from astronauts to zookeepers. These experts have volunteered to answer questions for free! Just who are these experts? They are real people! Some of the experts are university professors, doctors, lawyers, scientists, and computer specialists. One can find an expert in any of a variety of categories.

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Ask Jeeves

 

Ask Jeeves is an excellent site for asking experts questions about homework and other conundrums.

 

http://www.askjeeves.com/

 

 

Ask Jeeves covers a wide range of subjects. It directs the user to appropriate sites and articles matching the queries.

 

Ask Jeeves allows you to ask a question in plain English and, after interacting with you to confirm the question, Ask Jeeves takes you to one and only one web site that answers the question. The Ask Jeeves knowledge base consists of thousands of question templates and millions of researched answer links to web sites. The Ask Jeeves research staff selects questions and then searches the Internet for the best sites that answer the questions. According to the creators, humans build the Ask Jeeves knowledge base, not software "spiders" and, therefore, each answer link is guaranteed to be relevant to the question asked.

 

More Ask an Expert Sites

·        Ask Dr. Math

 

Ask Dr. Math is a question and answer service for math students and their teachers. A searchable archive is available by level and topic, as well as summaries of Frequently Asked Questions. This program originated at Swarthmore University in 1994 and was handled by a group of math students. The service became so popular that today there are more than 300 math experts from universities around the globe read to answer questions.

 

Questions may be submitted to this site and students may also peruse the archives for previously asked questions.

 

http://mathforum.org/dr.math/

 

On Your Own Activities

 

Now that you are familiar with a few of the expert web sites, pose a question that might be asked in your own class. Try posing that question on two different expert sites. Evaluate the sites you try for ease of use and accuracy.

 

There are many more expert sites on the web. Spend some time using your expert search techniques to discover another expert site that might be useful in your subject area.

 

 

 

On Your Own Activities

 

Online Ask-an-Expert Guided Exploration

 

Here, you will explore an excellent Ask-an-Expert web site hosted by Scientific American and how to locate and verify the validity of experts on the Internet. You will also learn about some hints and tips to elicit responses and some general guidelines to consider when using Ask-an-Expert Projects in the classroom.

 

Enter the Guided Exploration Tutorial:

http://www.k12science.org/tutorials/askanexpert/