YouTube for Schools launched

[bigal06]

I got Dansguardian working via the URL rewrite hack.

Edit /etc/dansguardian/lists/urlregexplist and add the following:

"(^http://[^/]*\.youtube\.[^?]*\?)(.+&)?(edufilter=[^&]*)"->"\1\2"
"(^http://[^/]*\.youtube\.[^?]*\?)"->"\1edufilter=yourkeygoeshere&"

Just a word of advice for those opening up youtube. Make sure you have https covered (your filter may not be doing the required transforms for youtubes secure site), and do this in a phased way - open up staff (if they weren't already) first, or an older group of students, or a single room.

Talking with some of the great and the good in education it seems there's a lot of "buzz" about this feature, and some of you will probably come under pressure from teaching staff who "get it" in the new year. I know you will be cautious, but I just thought i'd add a reminder for those still full of xmas spirit come the new term...

You need to stick this in your squid.conf config to stop https traffic to youtube.com as dansguardian doesn't seem to apply the urlregexplist to https traffic.

# Deny CONNECT to youtube.com - make sure you put this in bellow the acl CONNECT method CONNECT line
acl youtube dstdomain .youtube.com
http_access deny youtube CONNECT

Thanks for finding the regexpression driver and thanks to tom for pointing out the loophole on secure port

[ben604]

We're using this here through our Censornet box. It works up to a point. We can unlock videos by adding them to playlists within our Admin account, but the only way students can view those videos, as far as we can tell, is by a direct link to that exact video. We're doing this through Moodle, not necessarily a bad thing as it forces the departments to use it(!), but it would also be beneficial for students to view the Admin playlists, for quick access to videos, but at the moment, you can't browse playlists as it says it's blocked by the administrator of the education account!

Anyone got a work around?

[bigal06]

We're using this here through our Censornet box. It works up to a point. We can unlock videos by adding them to playlists within our Admin account, but the only way students can view those videos, as far as we can tell, is by a direct link to that exact video. We're doing this through Moodle, not necessarily a bad thing as it forces the departments to use it(!), but it would also be beneficial for students to view the Admin playlists, for quick access to videos, but at the moment, you can't browse playlists as it says it's blocked by the administrator of the education account!

Anyone got a work around?

I too noticed this and thought it was something I was doing wrong. I point youtube.com to our channel http://www.youtube.com/user/<YourChannelName>/videos (where <YourChannelName> is your school account. They can view the clips to the right as you say but not the playlist links!

[john]

We're using this here through our Censornet box. It works up to a point. We can unlock videos by adding them to playlists within our Admin account, but the only way students can view those videos, as far as we can tell, is by a direct link to that exact video. We're doing this through Moodle, not necessarily a bad thing as it forces the departments to use it(!), but it would also be beneficial for students to view the Admin playlists, for quick access to videos, but at the moment, you can't browse playlists as it says it's blocked by the administrator of the education account!

Anyone got a work around?

Indeed the documentation implys exactly what you are suggesting yet it doesn't work and we are having to do what you are doing. So yes it will boost our Moodle usage which is good but its not as easy as just go to the KS3 Science play list which is what I was expecting.

I do have to say though that I am impressed with it so far its working great with our pilot area and with the Smoothie so top marks to Google and Smoothwall

[Fizzy]

We have Youtube education working well with our DansGuardian and IPcop setup. However we have noticed that students can access Youtube user pages if they know the username for another youtube account example "youtube.com/user/bluexephos" This shows the youtube users main page/background and plays the current video even with the education block on. Links to other videos and playlists from this user are blocked. Does anyone else see this? Any Ideas how I could solve it or would i need to contact youtube regarding it.

[sonofsanta]

We have Youtube education working well with our DansGuardian and IPcop setup. However we have noticed that students can access Youtube user pages if they know the username for another youtube account example "youtube.com/user/bluexephos" This shows the youtube users main page/background and plays the current video even with the education block on. Links to other videos and playlists from this user are blocked. Does anyone else see this? Any Ideas how I could solve it or would i need to contact youtube regarding it.

Not seeing that here using Smoothwall G3 - getting the standard error about "not been approved by your school", so sounds like it's something your end - possibly not inserting the header correctly on some pages?


Also - everything is pretty much working for us, except the CSS doesn't seem to be loading. If I open the CSS directly it's fine (http://s.ytimg.com/yt/cssbin/www-fea...-vfld9WFPa.css) but force-refreshing the page, it just won't apply. Anyone else bumped into this?

[AngryTechnician]

Also - everything is pretty much working for us, except the CSS doesn't seem to be loading. If I open the CSS directly it's fine (http://s.ytimg.com/yt/cssbin/www-fea...-vfld9WFPa.css) but force-refreshing the page, it just won't apply. Anyone else bumped into this?

Yes, I'm seeing exactly that. Haven't had a chance to raise it yet as I was more interested in this for allowing videos embedded into other sites.

[2097]

our LEA proxy isnt loading the CSS either

[john]

Must admit my VM didn't load the CSS but as I've yet to actually sit at a PC and try it as a student I just assumed it was my VM being qwerky which is can be on sites like Youtube anyway at times. Is it a major loss though the CSS? Yes its not as glam but the video works which is the key thing IMHO.

[AngryTechnician]

Is it a major loss though the CSS? Yes its not as glam but the video works which is the key thing IMHO.

The page has almost no formatting whatsoever without it. Interesting that 2097 has noted it happens with other proxies too; I had suspected it was a YouTube problem rather than a Smoothwall problem (unless the LEA is using Smoothwall too).

[sonofsanta]

The page has almost no formatting whatsoever without it. Interesting that 2097 has noted it happens with other proxies too; I had suspected it was a YouTube problem rather than a Smoothwall problem (unless the LEA is using Smoothwall too).

I don't see how it can be a Smoothwall problem given that you can load the CSS directly and it isn't blocked. My only suspicion is that the page is trying to apply some CSS via script, as I think I saw in the source, and that it's somehow fouling it up.

[JSinclair]

Has anyone tried out Iain's ISAPI filter for TMG? I haven't found much in my searching for ways to get this implemented on TMG, and unfortunately I can't use the toolkit from Redline since I'm running on 2008 R2.
I would have PM'd directly but you need two posts before that is allowed.

[Iain]

Has anyone tried out Iain's ISAPI filter for TMG? I haven't found much in my searching for ways to get this implemented on TMG, and unfortunately I can't use the toolkit from Redline since I'm running on 2008 R2.
I would have PM'd directly but you need two posts before that is allowed.

I've sent you a PM, I think you should be able to reply to it.

Iain.

[JSinclair]

I've sent you a PM, I think you should be able to reply to it.

Iain.

Thanks Iain,
I was not able to respond due to the post requirement, although since this counts as my 2nd it should be fine now

[howartp]

We can unlock videos by adding them to playlists within our Admin account, but the only way students can view those videos, as far as we can tell, is by a direct link to that exact video.

I'm struggling to get this far...

I've got the header working correctly through Smoothwall, with the new G3 update released to us (NYCC) yesterday. I then added two videos to a test playlist but students still see the 'this video is blocked, ask your admin to add it to a playlist' error even when directly linking to it.

Anyone else come across this?

Peter