Do you block Youtube for Students?

[denzal2k4]

Blocked for pupilsPrimary age, we use the allowed video policy on Smoothwall to allow by video ID, not casued any issues so far.

[mikes]

To be honest I think it's going that way regardless of the filtering situation. I've happily worked here for nearly 20 years, though the school is currently lurching from total crisis to total crisis and it's hard to see a long term future here anymore (but hey, the IT is working). I'm feeling that it's time to retrain / polish up the CV and get out of education.

 

Yep I know how you feel I've been here since 2008 and it gets worse every year. Going to get out next year. But we have Youtube unblocked here (apart from a very few kids whose parents have denied them social media), never had a call to block it, but I think the kids mostly just use it for non educational use (putting music on) so if they did ask me to block it for students I wouldn't really care tbh.

[supportman]

Open to students and staff without restrictions.

 

It's well used around school as an educational and leisure tool.

[drutt]

Blocked by default for students, some exceptions made for creative arts and ICT lessons in Y10/11, with the caveat it's up to the teacher to make sure its not being abused in lesson and if we find the student is abusing the access it will be removed.

 

Really can't trust the YouTube algorithm as its very easy to get lumped into the weird rabbit hole of content that just isn't appropriate for kids.

 

We had more relaxed access for our Year 12 and 13 students until recently but found some of them would spend hours on Netflix or YouTube.

Edited December 4, 2023 by cnewstead
literacy

[GrumbleDook]

There are three strands to looking at this.

1. Education
   
2. Safeguarding
   
3. Data Protection/Privacy
   

Yes, there are lots of things on YouTube with educational benefits. Smarter Every Day, Physics Girl, NileRed, and so many more. Don't forget the hours and hours of archive stuff that is out there (Royal Insitute, RSC, CBeebies). Like all things within education, being able to identify and curate these is part of what a teacher does. The difficulty of managing this curation is the sticking point and one that becomes an administrative pain in the backside. That is not to say it cannot be done, just that you need to think about how it would be done and how it would be managed. Librarians, learning platforms, content caches ... all sorts of things have been tried over time, so if staff want resources on YouTube to be available, then this is part of the conversation that must be had.

 

The curation is also part and parcel of the safeguarding element. Depending on the age of the children and young people involved, the old examples of walled gardens ('allowed only' content) are key for younger ages (look at Education for a Connected World for expectations against age). As children get older, they should have their limits expanded, but there is still a duty of care. A balance needs to be struck, so you start to find filters to stop access or solutions to monitor access, which become important. Applying restricted/moderate settings is a common approach, but forcing no comments or subtitles (there are reasons) and such become more prevalent. Then we have schools tying this to the different types ages or levels of competency of children and young people, and this is where things come a little unstuck.

 

YouTube is not part of the core Google Workspace for Education solution. It never has been and probably never will be. This and any other 'additional service' are in place as the school and Alphabet are joint controllers of the personal data or separate controllers of the personal data. This means Alphabet can do what they want with the data provided to them through YouTube. The Google Education team have been clear about this, have lots of stuff about managing accounts so that they cannot access non-core services and how to use the additional services in a non-tracked way. If you tie in the level of restrictions on YouTube to a child's school account, then you cannot use Public Task as the lawful basis. Alphabet requires it to be consent. It then falls into the category of an Internet Society Service and the Children's Code applies. It is not to say that you cannot use YouTube. Just don't enable it on student accounts without thinking long and hard, but also don't think that you *have* to block it because of this. You don't, you can work around it ...

 

I would love to see all of the above as a complete breakdown of the usage of YouTube, and maybe one of the Google Ambassadors on here could suggest a case study or guide?

[sigma]

100% all the above, but that curation seems to fall between the cracks in terms of responsibility.

 

Since the return of pupils after the lockdowns, there seems to be a marked decline in some pupils staying on task when doing anything with computers.

 

The increased use of online gameification of learning (I am not a teacher), seems to be amplifying this. Sparksmaths, idea.org, Blooket, Kahoot, and any number of language platforms for example.

[GrumbleDook]

Gamification, when used incorrectly, can affect attention spans and there are some good folk out there talking about the good and bad of it all.

https://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/search?q=gamification Has a number of posts from Donald Clark, going back some time now as well.

Then you have folk like Richard Van Hooijdonk - https://blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com/en/game-on-the-power-of-gamification-in-education/- with interesting thoughts from research.

 

Like all tech, used well it is good, used poorly ... not so good.

 

Curation has to be facilitated by educators. Either through creation/co-creation or via discovery/review. The tools to enable it can come from a range of places, but if YouTube is being used then the possible limitations/harms need to be clear from word go.

[NeoNebula]

As far as I know, many teachers find blocking YouTube pointless since there are many videos related to the topic they teach.

[Driftingashore]

Just as my final (somewhat bitter) update, the DSL caved and told me to immediately block Youtube 10 minutes before the students got in, giving students/staff no warning.. being a SEN school this caused absolute chaos, and I ended up taking a punch to the face for doing it with about 8 other staff also assaulted through the day. Good times. Edited December 11, 2023 by Driftingashore

[robintech]

Just as my final (somewhat bitter) update

 

That's terrible, hope you're doing ok and the students got suspended

[3s-gtech]

That really is the extreme end of what happens when literally doing your job.

 

I’d be expecting a full apology from the DSL (fat chance) for creating that situation, and the student dealt with in line with the policies of the school (assault on staff in some schools isn’t instant expulsion, I know).

[LeMarchand]

Just as my final (somewhat bitter) update, the DSL caved and told me to immediately block Youtube 10 minutes before the students got in, giving students/staff no warning.. being a SEN school this caused absolute chaos, and I ended up taking a punch to the face for doing it with about 8 other staff also assaulted through the day. Good times.

 

That's awful! Hope you and the other staff are OK.

[NeoNebula]

That's horrible and unfair. Hope you are doing ok...

[NeoNebula]

Anyway, today, I faced the point that blocking YouTube entirely is pointless. Many teachers find helpful videos and tutorials there, so strict monitoring is the key! Edited December 21, 2023 by NeoNebula

[MoZaRa]

I normally leave it for the headteacher to decide. If a staff member asks, I ask them to email the head and cc me in so I know it's all okay before unblocking anything. Saves me if anyone was to access anything they shouldn't then it's been confirmed by 2 staff members at minimum.

[Ex-MGSTech]

Yep Youtube completely blocked for students. Teachers access only.

 

 

Same here, Students can't stay on track!

[mikes]

We only block youtube for those kids who consistently misbehave / upset a teacher etc. Have a list set up so those students can only access Google apps no other websites. But for most students it is enabled. TBH If I check the logs for a day it seems most youtube videos watched are either football clips or clips of video games. Too bad youtube doesn't have a reliable category mode.

And yeah I've had students whine at me when I had to block slope.io or whatever but I tell them, listen, I have no power here I just have to do what the staff tell me to do, if they tell me to block slope.io then I have to do it or get fired.

[MartinT]

It's not blocked for age-appropriate students, but we enforce SafeSearch on it and remove comments.

 

There are time constraints so that they cannot watch YT during lessons, only during breaks. This is to preserve internet bandwidth for lesson delivery.

[sigma]

Just to say, and I assume it is true for other filters, not just Netsweeper. You can easily allow embedded videos hosted on any platform such as YouTube or Vimeo, by adding an "allow" for the Referrer Header of the domain of the embedding site. (Sparxmaths, CorbettMaths, etc) without needing to either open up the whole platform or allowing the many video urls individually.

 

(One day, SBB might understand this).

Edited June 12, 2024 by sigma