Learning resources and content filters

4 min read

When Spark coaches a learning proposal, it may suggest a few relevant links — a video, an article, a practice plan, or sheet music. These are learning resources. This guide explains where they come from, how they get filtered, and how to control who sees them.

What a resource looks like

Each resource has a title, a URL, a source, a short snippet describing what's there, and a content type: video, article, practice plan, or sheet music. Resources are attached to specific learning tasks, not to the family generally.

When a kid is working on a learning task, they can follow the resource links from the task detail page — assuming the resources are set to be visible to them.

Resources are suggested by Spark during proposal coaching. They're not added manually — you get them when Spark identifies that they'd be useful for a learning task.

How filtering works

Before any resource reaches a proposal, it's checked against your family profile. Two things matter: which content types you've allowed (video, article, practice plan, sheet music), and which domains you've blocked.

If you've turned off videos, no video resources will surface regardless of how relevant they might be. If you've blocked a domain, nothing from that domain will appear even if the content would otherwise be fine. The filters run before the results are ranked and returned.

Spark returns up to three resources per task. If nothing passes the filters for a given topic, no resources are returned. Choreze won't fill the space with something that didn't pass your rules.

Visibility — who sees what

Resources have two visibility flags: one for parents, one for kids. By default both are on. If you want to review a resource before your kid can access it, you can set it to parent-visible only from the task detail page.

There's no separate resource review queue. Visibility is set per resource, per task. Once you've reviewed a resource and you're comfortable with it, flip the visibility and the kid can see it from their task view.

Blocked domains vs. blocked topics

Blocked domains remove specific websites from resource results. Every resource from a domain you've blocked is excluded, on any topic. This is the right tool when you know a site isn't appropriate regardless of content.

Blocked topics work differently. They tell Spark not to suggest tasks or search for resources in that subject area at all. The right tool when there's a subject you want to avoid, rather than a specific site.

Both live in the family learning profile. You can use one, both, or neither — they're independent filters.