Youtube restricted mode, or other method?

[Sheridan]

We currently allow youtube for staff, and for students with Restricted Mode enabled using the Smoothwall content modification.

 

Its a major pain now as all Staff do is look for videos and send the links to the kids - which are blocked in most cases as its in restricted mode! (even if the video itself appears pretty tame) It even worse as they do their searching at home which is obviously unfiltered!

 

We also use G Suite - so I'm wondering how does anyone else deal with this? Do you do the filtering by allowing them to sign in using their G Suite account and filter through that, or use Smoothwall in a different way, or simply block youtube for students!

[asm]

We have just blocked for all students up until Sixth Form in the past, if a YouTube video was required for homework the teachers would send the youtube link via the school mailing system. If the video was needed for a lesson we would download the video and place it in a shared folder for the students to access.

 

It's a tricky situation, you could always look at whitelisting certain videos?

[Sheridan]

We have whitelisted certain channels in the past - but staff just seem to have a scatterbomb approach. I.e whatever they find that is remotely useful gets chucked into the mix. Unblocking all of these channels would be a nightmare!

 

We have looked at the Google method - but that relies on them signing into youtube (which I guess could be tied in with their G Suite account login) but I've never looked into this too much. I guess we'd have to block youtube entirely then unless they were signed in.

[PotNoodleTech]

Yes were having this not with smoothwall but with LEA filtering - it's hard to get the balance right as ideally you want restricted mode on to get rid of the more nasty stuff, but restricted mode also cuts out a lot of perfectly fine learning material.

 

Really, youtube need to make restricted mode better.

[Sheridan]

Youtube Edu was a good direction initially - we could then tell staff if it wasn't on there kids couldn't see it! Now its a bit of a mash up.

[asm]

The issue you'll find Mr Butters, is that implies Google will ever make an improvement on YouTube! There isn't any simple solution and it's very much a case of what causes the least hassle. There are potential workarounds but none that will resolve all of your issues.

 

You could potentially disable restricted mode and block all of YouTube and only allow through specific videos but that sound incredibly tedious and doesn't really solve any of your issues, just circumvents them.

[Rob_D]

We just block it for students. It's always been blocked, so staff just work around it.

 

There are some exceptions where we've allowed youtube during lesson time for specific groups/ individuals at the teacher's request.

[ChrisMiles]

G Suite allows you to configure teachers as content reviewers that can approve specific videos. That way, students can log into youtube using their school google account and then view the video even when in restricted mode. It even keeps a list of who approved what. We enforce YouTube Restricted Mode using a combination of DNS and GPO (so that non-logged in users all get restricted mode), then set G Suite permissions to allow staff access to everything and students access to everything in restricted mode + what has been allowed. You get a blue bar on every video page that says if it's accessible and a button to approve it if not.

 

Here's where you set the initial settings:

 

The the top-level permissions to force restricted by default:

 

And finally the staff OU level permissions to allow approval of videos:

Edited November 29, 2017 by ChrisMiles

[Sheridan]

G Suite allows you to configure teachers as content reviewers that can approve specific videos. That way, students can log into youtube using their school google account and then view the video even when in restricted mode. It even keeps a list of who approved what. We enforce YouTube Restricted Mode using a combination of DNS and GPO (so that non-logged in users all get restricted mode), then set G Suite permissions to allow staff access to everything and students access to everything in restricted mode + what has been allowed. You get a blue bar on every video page that says if it's accessible and a button to approve it if not.

 

That sounds like what we might need to do - unblocking youtube completely for students is a non starter on many levels, not just safeguarding.

 

Can I ask what you had to do with GPOs and DNS to allow this? I've read that you point DNS entries to a different url - and this then requires all users to be signed into Youtube with their GSuite account (which we don't currently allow) Did you have to set a GPO to allow them to login to youtube?

[ChrisMiles]

That sounds like what we might need to do - unblocking youtube completely for students is a non starter on many levels, not just safeguarding.

 

Can I ask what you had to do with GPOs and DNS to allow this? I've read that you point DNS entries to a different url - and this then requires all users to be signed into Youtube with their GSuite account (which we don't currently allow) Did you have to set a GPO to allow them to login to youtube?

 

You allow students to log into YouTube by enabling it for their OU in G Suite. (or by restoring the default option of On for everyone):

 

 

The DNS mods are hard to do with windows, if not impossible, so we have a tiny little ubuntu server running BIND with a response policy configured and the domain dns servers use it as the forwarder. The policy looks like this:

 

$ORIGIN rpz.
$TTL 1H
@	IN	SOA	dns01.ad.domain.org. root.ad.domain.org. (
		7
		1H
		15m
		30d
		2h )
		NS LOCALHOST.

www.youtube.com			IN CNAME restrict.youtube.com.
m.youtube.com			IN CNAME restrict.youtube.com.
youtube.googleapis.com		IN CNAME restrict.youtube.com.
youtubei.googleapis.com		IN CNAME restrict.youtube.com.

 

It looks complicated but I'm no linux expert and managed to set it up easily using a couple of Google searches. You can use this to force Google SafeSearch too.

 

The GPOs only work for Chrome (we remove all other browsers from our images).

Edited November 29, 2017 by ChrisMiles

[Sheridan]

You allow students to log into YouTube by enabling it for their OU in G Suite. (or by restoring the default option of On for everyone):

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]46429[/ATTACH]

 

The DNS mods are hard to do with windows, if not impossible, so we have a tiny little ubuntu server running BIND with a response policy configured and the domain dns servers use it as the forwarder. The policy looks like this:

 

$ORIGIN rpz.
$TTL 1H
@	IN	SOA	dns01.ad.domain.org. root.ad.domain.org. (
		7
		1H
		15m
		30d
		2h )
		NS LOCALHOST.

www.youtube.com			IN CNAME restrict.youtube.com.
m.youtube.com			IN CNAME restrict.youtube.com.
youtube.googleapis.com		IN CNAME restrict.youtube.com.
youtubei.googleapis.com		IN CNAME restrict.youtube.com.

 

It looks complicated but I'm no linux expert and managed to set it up easily using a couple of Google searches. You can use this to force Google SafeSearch too.

 

The GPOs only work for Chrome (we remove all other browsers from our images).

 

I think this is where I got stuck a year or so ago, when I enabled the sign in to Youtube and set Staff as Approvers and students as restricted. Staff couldn't see any option to approve a restricted video so I guess the DNS entries are where I went wrong!

[Rob_D]

You should be able to get smoothwall to do the redirecting for you.

https://kb.smoothwall.net/Content/applications/restricted_youtube.htm

[Sheridan]

I think I'm nearly there. Both staff and students can sign into youtube ,Staff have full access to youtube, students have restricted access whether signed in or not (thanks to the smoothwall content mod)

 

What I seem to be missing is the facility to approve a video - but I'm guessing thats down to the dns settings - and I can'y really mess about with dns settings for the most important website of all during lesson times!

[Sheridan]

Ah ha! It looks like its working with the smoothwall content mod - it must have just taken a little while for the settings to replicate on the G Suite side of things! Now a staff member can approve a video and the student can watch it.

 

I take it that its normal behaviour for an Approved video not to show up in the search, but can be accessed using the link?

[ChrisMiles]

Ah ha! It looks like its working with the smoothwall content mod - it must have just taken a little while for the settings to replicate on the G Suite side of things! Now a staff member can approve a video and the student can watch it.

 

I take it that its normal behaviour for an Approved video not to show up in the search, but can be accessed using the link?

 

Yes that's normal unfortunately, the search is limited to restricted mode videos only, but links will work ONLY if the student is logged in with their G Suite account.

[Sheridan]

That's OK though, its better than I was expecting. The only thing that doesn't work is an Approved channel shows no videos (and there's plenty in the test one!)

 

I don't know if that's the way I'm doing it, or whether there's a delay whilst the channel videos are approved?

[ChrisMiles]

Honestly I've never tried approving a channel, maybe have to approve individual videos?

[DGardiner]

I think I'm nearly there. Both staff and students can sign into youtube ,Staff have full access to youtube, students have restricted access whether signed in or not (thanks to the smoothwall content mod)

 

What I seem to be missing is the facility to approve a video - but I'm guessing thats down to the dns settings - and I can'y really mess about with dns settings for the most important website of all during lesson times!

 

google made a new youtube look, either the approval proccess isnt in the new look or theres a different method of invoking it.

 

press your profile icon in the top right and go back to classic view. you should then see an approval bar on the videos/channels

[Sheridan]

Honestly I've never tried approving a channel, maybe have to approve individual videos?

 

Individual video approval works, but channel approval seems to only approve the channel and no videos with it! The way its worded on Google's documentation is that approvers can approve a video or channel.

 

Still its a step forward anyway - approving a whole channel should be approached with caution unless you've checked out every video in it!