Youtube filtering - do you do it?

[localzuk]

In our schools we have various setups for Youtube - some schools want it blocked entirely for children, others not. There is the option of the Youtube education filtering via DNS as well.

 

The question is - what do you do?

 

One of our schools wants it blocked for children, but unblocked fully for staff. However, they've just decided to use HegartyMaths, and whilst we won't unblock Vimeo (due to the annoying way the site works and their hosting of adult content) they have switched the account over to Youtube instead.

 

So, as far as I can see, my options are:

 

1. HegartyMaths would only be useable by staff, or by children at home

2. We unblock youtube for children

3. We introduce the Youtube filtering stuff at the school, but it will affect staff also (as we'd have to do it via DNS)

 

How are you handling this sort of thing in your school?

[synaesthesia]

It's gotten so difficult for us we've all but given up, leaving it unblocked for staff and students. Although we do now have an updated version of Impero back in place we may lock it down again on a per-room basis, where staff would request the unblocking of youtube prior to lessons taking place (in reality during the lesson)

[bossman]

Youtube:

 

Staff = Yes

Students = No

 

We use MyMaths which all students can access......

[FN-GM]

If you have G Suite it can be setup with an approval mode. All videos are restricted by default and teachers can approve them themselves. Once this happens students can view them.

[localzuk]

If you have G Suite it can be setup with an approval mode. All videos are restricted by default and teachers can approve them themselves. Once this happens students can view them.

"Hi, yes, you need to approve 850 videos"... "That's an admin task"...

[FN-GM]

"Hi, yes, you need to approve 850 videos"... "That's an admin task"...

 

Ha ha - Whats wrong with you? Get started now and you will be done for next week!

[Katy]

Ha ha - Whats wrong with you? Get started now and you will be done for next week!

Oh, didn't they say? They need it sorting by morning break today.

[LukeRowberry]

Blocker

[PrimaryNetMan]

Restricted access via DNS for everyone by default

 

Staff full access with approval permissions via G Suite

[MartinT]

YouTube/Google safesearch enforced.

 

YouTube allowed to seniors (Y11 upwards) at all times. For juniors, allowed only outside of lesson times.

[fiza]

We have Youtube blocked for Students Y7-Y11. Staff have restricted access via G Suite and we approve videos when requested.

6th form have access to youtube, again restricted via G Suite so any videos they need that are not available need to be approved by IT.

If any teachers want Y7-Y11 to view individual youtube videos then we can allow those through Smoothwall.

 

Hegarty Maths have their videos on Vimeo but they provide us with the video codes so that we can allow the appropriate videos through Smoothwall.

 

We have been doing this for a year and a half and it all works well.

[TechMonkey]

We got Planet E-stream and now block youTube to students, but allow the embed functionality. This allows staff to add a youtube video to eStream for pupils to be able to watch but they then can't get lost down the rabbit hole of youTube. It does stop independent research but it was decided that was fair enough.

 

So teachers now have to curate the videos they want pupils to look at and that is part of their lesson prep.

[AJWhite1970]

We have Google and Youtube safe search enabled by default for all users. Youtube was restricted access but this year we have allowed access to Y7-13, so far so good, no fluffy cat falling out a window videos being watched rather than listening in advanced science...

[localzuk]

Hegarty Maths have their videos on Vimeo but they provide us with the video codes so that we can allow the appropriate videos through Smoothwall.

How does this work, as part of unblocking anything from Vimeo also unblocks the ability to embed any of their videos in other sites last I checked, as you have to unblock the back end/cdn part of their system?

[fiza]

How does this work, as part of unblocking anything from Vimeo also unblocks the ability to embed any of their videos in other sites last I checked, as you have to unblock the back end/cdn part of their system?

It's been a while since we set it up but I am sure we followed this guide

 

https://kb.smoothwall.net/Content/filtering/allow-embedded_Vimeo_videos.htm

 

Embedded videos on other sites are definitely still blocked. We just add the Hegarty individual video URLs to our Vimeo Allowed Category.

[maark]

We use smartplay with lightspeed - works pretty well - blocks most content except educational and we can allow specific ones through. You have to use lightspeed proxy though.

[Areku]

blocked by default for students, unblocked for staff.

howevery our web filter (protex) is able to allow our VLE to be a trusted referrer.

 

That way if a staff member embeds a video in the VLE, the student can see it and play. If the student was to goto youtube direct, or any site that embeds and isnt a trusted referer, then its blocked.

[Reverend_Dan]

We have it open to staff and filtered to strict-safe for pupils with our Fortigate firewall. It works well judging by the number of complaining children I get asking why they cant play songs or watch certain channels. It also allows me to block sound cloud and google play music, Netflix.

[Duke5A]

It's a bit convoluted the way I have it setup. Staff and students use separate internal Squid proxies for traffic logging against AD and other tweaks. The Squids then use an external filter hosted in the ether as a cache peer via port 8080 through our firewall. Outbound ports 80 and 443 are blocked for all student and staff subnets so if any of them figure a way around the client proxy settings their web request will still be swatted down. The staff proxy allows complete access to YouTube, while the student proxy uses DNS redirection for the kids to enforce YouTube Restricted mode. That DNS that does the redirect is provided by a BIND install running on the same proxy with Squid pointing to it.

 

If staff want to whitelist YT videos they can by logging into YT with their school provided G-Suite account. Not all of our staff use it.

 

This setup allows me to give whitelisting capabilities to the staff and keep it off of my plate. Your mileage may vary....

[mavhc]

Youtube's strict filtering lets through way too much, I'd rather it blocked everything, then things were whitelisted

 

Also once you whitelist something you still can't search for it last time I looked

[DavidYoung]

blocked by default for students, unblocked for staff.

howevery our web filter (protex) is able to allow our VLE to be a trusted referrer.

 

That way if a staff member embeds a video in the VLE, the student can see it and play. If the student was to goto youtube direct, or any site that embeds and isnt a trusted referer, then its blocked.

 

I've just worked out how to do this through Netsweeper. Adding a referrer header allow rule for classroom.google.com and also for youtube.com/embed/*. This seems to work in my testing so far so will look to roll it out soon. Also fixes other sites which embed Youtube or Vimeo videos without having to open the whole content platform.

[ADMaster]

I completely disagree with what youtube considers restricted there is no rhyme or reason. Two recent examples, a khan academy video and someone singing God Bless America were deemed restricted. Yet students can watch fortnite, football and cats without approval.

I have youtube restricted via dns for everyone and teachers are un restricted / approvers via g suite.

I have found this provides a catch 22 for students to create their own channels and be able to sign in and watch approved videos.

 

To the issue of needing to approve 850 videos, you can approve an entire channel.

 

I found a topic on it on the cloud connect community, please go vote for it.

https://www.cloudconnectcommunity.com/ccc/ls/community/g-suite-chrome-feature-ideas/post/5302178021638144

[ataylor]

If you contact hegarty maths they will provide you with a list of all the videos on their website so you can unblock them all.

 

EDIT: - https://hegartymaths.com/help-resources

 

download link at the bottom of the page

Edited October 4, 2018 by ataylor

[woody]

For anyone who has Sophos UTM9 as their web filter, you can vote for the option to allow based on referrer header here (please do so!):

 

https://ideas.sophos.com/forums/17359-sg-utm/suggestions/18539521-allow-web-filtering-exceptions-to-use-the-referrer