ClassHook is an innovative tool that allows teachers to bring movie and TV show clips into the classroom as useful, digestible chunks.
The idea is to use already engaging content, such as Simpsons episodes or Marvel movies, to capture the students' attention. But this does it in a way that flows and helps the learning process rather than be a distraction.
From age-appropriate labeling to topic- and grade-specific categorizing, it is easy to use for all and is particularly aimed at students in the classroom. While teachers will need to check clips for age appropriateness, to be extra safe, the general level of school appropriateness is already cleared.
Read on to find out all you need to know in this ClassHook review.
What is ClassHook?
ClassHook is an online-based tool that is collaborative in nature and offers short two- to six-minute video clips. These are clips taken from TV and movies, and have been cut down and categorized for use in class.
Partially developed mini-lessons are available and can be useful for those new to the platform or teachers who want to get up and running quickly. Individual users can filter and save video clips with the ability to categorize for easier access at a later stage.
ClassHook also offers the option to follow the clip with discussions thanks to an option to add questions afterward, which can help ensure students pay attention but can also be used as a segue into another or similar subject.
As you'd imagine, since this is a community-led initiative, the clips available are limited compared to what you might find on, say, a YouTube search. However, the trade-off here is that these are all going to be class-appropriate and at digestible lengths, which is more suitable for teaching use.
These clips are ideal for introducing a new topic, for reinforcing learning on a certain point, and for supplementing lessons, both inside the class and for extra research work. The fun and engaging nature of these videos can make it a useful way to achieve the mastery of a concept through repeated viewing, ideally by student choice.
How does ClassHook work?
ClassHook is easy to sign-up to and is totally free to use. Adverts do pop up since this will use YouTube and Vimeo clips, so it's worth keeping an eye on these to make sure they're all class-appropriate.
Hit the Sign In button at the top right of the webpage for any device you're using, and you'll be able to sign up with relatively few details. Essentially, if you have an email account, and a few details about what and where you teach, you're good to go.
By default you're signed up to the Vetter Program, which has you vet clips to ascertain if the content is appropriate or not. Essentially, it's helping the community work as it should – but you can uncheck this if you want.
Once signed up, you'll have access to more than 6,000 clips. You'll be able to create and share playlists, bookmark clips for quicker access, write comments on clips, submit clips to share with the community, and more.
You will be given a link to share with others so you can invite more teachers and students to use the service.
Clip submissions is a useful feature that allows you to get clips onto the service you need rather than having to search for any. Otherwise, to search, simply type in what you are looking for and you'll be given options from which to choose. This can be refined by adding in filters for grade level, length of clip, series, and even subsearch. That or you can search by subject area.
What are the best ClassHook features?
While you're not going to get as many results for searching in this service over, say YouTube, you do get the added peace of mind that everything has been vetted. That said, if you want to be extra cautious, there is that option.
Clips can feature profanity, so there is an option to check a No Profanity box if you want that extra layer of safety.
Video clips can be submitted to the community, or your students, with questions added. This can be done by navigating to the clip and adding the question or comment, then grabbing the embed code to share that using whatever medium is best for you.
The Playlist feature is helpful. It allows you to go through clips, and select the Add button when you find something that might work. You can then go to your Playlist section and all of these saved clips are in one place for you to work through and whittle down to what you want.
Live discussion is a great feature that allows you create video playlists with questions and prompts for discussion, all of which students can access from anywhere and all watch along together, live.
How much does ClassHook cost?
ClassHook in its Basic plan form is free to use. This gets you up to 20 clips per month, search access, the ability to create playlists, request new clips and embed one question per clip. You can create up to three live discussion rooms and host up to three personal clips.
A paid tier is at the Premium level, charged at $9 per month. This gets you all of the above plus the ability to watch unlimited clips, browse clips by standards, use a vocabulary word finder, embed unlimited questions, advanced search using filters, use the roster with Google Classroom, have unlimited discussion rooms, unlimited clip uploads, genre browse, in-video search, clip insights, auto profanity skip, extend embed question time, and priority clip request support.
There is also the option for a school or district tier that is charged at a custom price to suit the scale. This has all the above features plus adds volume pricing discounts, as well as reporting and metrics.
ClassHook best tips and tricks
Teach social-emotional learning
Use clips such as the Despicable Me 2 self-awareness clip or the Angry Birds self-management clip to help students learn to work with their emotional health. Or clips such as the Babe movie section to better work with relationship skills.
Use pause prompts
Get better student engagement by using pause prompts, allowing you to assign think-pair-share activities, check student understanding, require students write reflections and more, all while working through the clip.
Have a live discussion
Collate a list of clips with questions in the live discussion section, allowing students to comment and further cover the subject in the room or remotely. Students will appear in the sidebar so they can join in the video watch list live, from anywhere.
