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ClassHook
Pros: Offers high-interest videos and links to standards. Discussion feature encourages user interaction.
Cons: It's not always easy to assess how well a video fits a topic or learning standard. Video library is minimal; some videos are unavailable due to copyright. Basic account has limited features.
Bottom Line: Supplemental popular videos will engage students, but teachers will need to be deliberate in content selection and lesson design.
The video content on ClassHook can be an effective, student-friendly medium for supplementing learning. Introduce a topic like chemical properties with a short clip from Mythbusters. Help students understand homeostasis using The Big Bang Theory. Ponder the concept of economic surplus via The Office, or visit an art gallery with Vincent van Gogh and Doctor Who. Evaluate essential questions with a premium account using clips from Everybody Hates Chris or Matilda. You could also flip your classroom: Assign a series of videos on the environment and ask students to discuss solutions in class.
Want to promote creativity? Have students view several videos on the same topic and then create their own videos to demonstrate their understanding. Teachers can also help students develop critical questioning skills by having them create discussion questions to submit to the ClassHook community.
Teachers can easily get lost going down the rabbit hole to search for ideas, so they should have a good idea of what they're looking for beforehand. Also, since many of the videos contain advertising, teachers should take proper precautions to avoid showing inappropriate content. If schools don't allow YouTube access, teachers may need to use a workaround such as SafeShare.tv.
There are no filters for inappropriate content, so be sure to treat this site like any website with search capabilities. Note that automatic profanity skipping is a Premium feature.
ClassHook is a video clip curation site where teachers can search for content from popular TV shows and movies to support instruction. Teachers can add students manually or import rosters via Google Classroom. Depending on the plan type, users can browse, save, and assign activities based on video clips searchable through different filters, including grade level, topic, genre, vocabulary, use of profanity, standards, and length. Clips are short (less than 10 minutes) and are tagged by topic. Broad age-appropriateness icons include kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, and college; however, due to the range of ages in schools, teachers will need to vet content for their grade level. Using the ClassHook's Playlists, Comparisons, or Discussions features, teachers can create a more in-depth or interactive experience for students. For discussions, students log in using a code to answer the questions, and the answers can be made visible to other students.
While it has over 4,000 videos, the site doesn't feature the same abundance of content as sites like YouTube or Vimeo, so teachers might be disappointed when searches yield few or no results for certain topics. That said, teachers will likely appreciate not having to sift through dozens of videos or go to the trouble of editing them to show only the relevant parts.
To see how this tool works, watch our video overview of ClassHook.
The video content on ClassHook can be an effective, student-friendly medium for supplementing learning. Looking for ways to bring more diversity to your history content? Search for topics such as Black history or women's history, and create a playlist that presents your students with different perspectives. Let Neil DeGrasse-Tyson supplement your teaching of astronomy through a clip from Cosmos. Help students understand the concept of symmetry through a playlist that features clips from both Cyberchase and The Big Bang Theory, or visit an art gallery with Vincent van Gogh and Doctor Who. Help kids ponder philosophical questions using clips from Friends or The Good Place. Students can also develop critical thinking skills by comparing videos on the same topic and answering teacher-created questions that prompt reflection.
Video as a medium is ever-present in kids' digital lives, so take advantage of the opportunity to help them develop media literacy and critical thinking skills through shows or movies that they know. As with any curation site, teachers can easily get overwhelmed with content, so they should go into the search with a clear idea of what they're looking for.
Also, since some of the videos may contain advertising or previews, teachers should take proper precautions to avoid showing inappropriate content. Since students are able to search for content idependently, be sure to take the precautions you would with any searchable video site.
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