Check123 is a new, free service that offers 1, 2, and 3-minute videos across a variety of K-12 subject areas. Any teacher who has tried to use YouTube (or a similar service) to find a classroom video is aware of how difficult that can sometimes be, especially given the enormous number of videos you have to wade through. To make finding educational videos easier, Check123 offers a highly curated collection of videos, organized around subject areas.
Plus, they have some additional features that make classroom use even easier.
Plus, they have some additional features that make classroom use even easier.
At it’s core, Check123 is an incredibly simple resource, which is a good thing. You can visit the site, search for videos by subject area, or just through a typical search, and find any videos that meet your criteria. Videos are organized by educational relevance/rating as opposed to popularity, which means you’ll see the highest quality videos first in your search results. You can also choose to follow specific subject areas if you want to get updated on the latest additions to the category.
As I mentioned, all of the videos on Check123 are highly curated, which means that the Check123 team has worked with experts in these different respective fields to find quality videos that align with topics and content areas. Additionally, all of the videos are less than 4 minutes, so they are focused on the topic they are meant to address.
Overall, the Check123 team has over 15,000 videos and that number is always expanding. The videos are all pulled from common educational sources like National Geographic and BBC Earth. Plus, each video shows related content to the right side, so students can zoom in and learn more about the specifics, or zoom out and learn more about the general concepts being discussed in the video.
Teachers also have the ability to create playlists of videos which they can send out to their students. After you create a free account, you can visit your profile and choose to Create New Lesson. From there, you’ll be able to add in a series of videos and then send out the playlist link to your students. As opposed to a site like YouTube, you won’t have to worry about students stumbling across ads, related videos (with questionable content), or anything along those lines.
After you find the videos you would like to use, you can click “Preview Lesson” and then you’ll have the option to add in quiz questions. Just fast forward the video to where you’d like to add the question and click on “Add question.” You’ll then be able to insert a multiple choice question at the marker.
When your students watch the video, they’ll be asked the question when they reach that place in the video, and you’ll be able to see how each of your students did. While Check123 doesn’t have as many interactive features as services like EdPuzzle, I still think this is a great feature for an already beneficial service.
Finally, you also have the option of using the Smart Search feature which I particularly enjoyed. Under your profile, you can select Smart Search, and then paste in a link to a website or a text file to have that text automatically searched for keywords.
Let’s say you have a NYTimes article that you’re using in class and you want to find related videos. Just paste in the link to the article (or the text from the article), and it will automatically find the keywords and pull up potentially related videos. It’s a great time saver that keeps you from having to search multiple keywords to find what you’re looking for.
Overall, I’m a big fan of Check123. Having spent hours in the classroom searching through pages of YouTube to try and find an appropriate video, a resource like this would have been immensely helpful. Plus, the ability to send out playlists is great, as is the quiz feature that allows you to ask questions about each video. To top everything off, Check123 is a completely free resource.
So, if you’re ever on the hunt for an educational video, and you don’t want to spend the time digging through all the YouTube possibilities, I recommend giving Check123 a try!
The opinions expressed in this review are my own.
I was not compensated for writing this review.
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