YouTube Blocked at School

[Jeff 801]

one thing to think about is the schools don't block it but the county and it is not by the url's but by key words on the web page or at least that is how it is down here.

[T3_1565]

well we have some site unblocked at our school (chiefdelphi for example) just have your teacher talk to the board via email and request that it is unblocked for educational reasons.. We got Google Video unblocked and delphi too through the teachers and not through filter bypasses

[ZeetherKID77]

I hate when schools block websites like that. Especially when it doesn't make sense why they blocked it.

[Cuog]

Yeah having Sites blocked is no fun. My school has been upgrading everything which has been good and bad, websense has been freaking out, It even blocked the schools website for a day. On the bright side I stay on the ITs good side and I'm often able to get some of the old hardware that they don't need anymore. If you want something unblocked the best thing that you can do is go to the Administrator with a good argument as to why it should be unblocked, and there is a good chance that they will unblock it for you. And definately don't do like a member of our team did, story: Our team has an account on the system so that we can log in and get slightly better privileges, mostly more network storage and unlimited printing(instead of the 400 page a year limit). So this unnamed member of the team went to proxify to get around the websense, well the admins have a nifty script that immediately suspends whatever account access proxify and emails them to let them know what computer they are on. So we had to do a lot of smoothing things over to get our team back on their good side. Please, be smart and don't make the system admins job harder.

[Alexa Stott]

Originally Posted by Charger_07

ya its annoying that they block youtube at my school but people at my school do some stupid stuff....in my opinion youtube is the best video hosting site, thats why it annoys me that websense blocks it... but do not tell me ways to get past the filter.....(thats for the CD admins and the ones giving me negative feedback) i dont want anyone thinking i am enabling people to break the rules, so once again don't tell me ways to get past the filters....i dont want anymore negative feedback for something that i didnt even do and i dont want to have to send a message requesting the feedback be removed only to not be listened to at all by a CD admin

If you have a problem with negative rep you received, take it up with the person involved and, if you truly believe they were wrong, contact Brandon and he could possibly remove it (or change it to neutral).

Also, remember that all the mods here on ChiefDelphi are volunteers. Many of them are in college or have a job, as well as on FIRST teams who are smack in the middle of build season. Please remember this before you criticize them.

Thank you.

[Tri_Lam]

Originally Posted by M. Krass.

Seriously... talking about methods for circumventing school policy is not okay. Really.

uhhhhhhhh sry bout that guys will keep quiet now

[Matt Gardner]

We don;t really have a problem with that at our school because we have a wireless network that allows us to use our own laptops, psps, etc. and we can access any site we wish (people often play WOW in the halls at lunch, lol). Also, our technical head is our mentor, so if we have issues that need fixing they can be addressed...

[Charger_07]

Originally Posted by AtalanteStar25

If you have a problem with negative rep you received, take it up with the person involved and, if you truly believe they were wrong, contact Brandon and he could possibly remove it (or change it to neutral).

Also, remember that all the mods here on ChiefDelphi are volunteers. Many of them are in college or have a job, as well as on FIRST teams who are smack in the middle of build season. Please remember this before you criticize them.

Thank you.

I went a little overboard, sorry bout that

[Doug G]

Originally Posted by Donut

Some of us aren't so lucky to get google video even. At last check any and all video hosting sites (youtube, google video, zippy video, photobucket, imageshack, etc.) have been blocked from our school.

Ours blocks google video and youtube as well. But I mentioned google video so that we can at least download the videos at home and then share them with others at school. Now someone mentioned you can download flash embeded video with Firefox? Can someone elaborate on this or should I just get off my lazy rear and start using firefox?

[Tuba4]

I can address the school web blocking issue from a very different viewpoint from most of those who have posted. I am on the school board for the Millcreek Township School District in Erie PA. Our township borders the city of Erie PA on the south and the west. We have approximately 1,500 laptop and desktop computers to serve 7,500 students in 2 high schools, 3 middle schools and 7 elementary schools. I also chair the Operations Committee which oversees the installation of technology. So although I am not an IT expert, I do know a little bit about the problem.

There are 2 main reasons for schools to block so many sites. First and foremost, installing web filtering software was mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Some of you may have heard of that. No choice, we had to do it. Many schools took the easy way out and blocked large categories of websites (Someone help me out here. Is their not some type of HTML tag which can help identify site content and rating?) such as sports, games, entertainment, and the all encompassing unidentified and unrated categories.

The second and perhaps more important reason is the issue of bandwidth and it's cost. Students were consuming such large amounts of bandwidth viewing and downloading videos, playing and downloading music and playing online video games that it had a huge impact on legitimate student and administrative usage. We were forced to adopt the category blocking I mentioned to bring the situation under control. We also updated our policies regarding computer usage and put some teeth into them. Here is a broad overview of our policies: http://www.mtsd.org/district/technology/policy.asp Sadly a former robotics team member got caught and was suspended from school. And no I did not turn him in!

So there are some very legitimate reasons for school web blocking. But we also have a process and procedure to have sites unblocked. I would bet you all have a process by which you can get sites unblocked too. Just calmly document your reasons to get a site unblocked without going on a rant about how unfair blocking is. You will get a lot further that way.

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by Doug G

Ours blocks google video and youtube as well. But I mentioned google video so that we can at least download the videos at home and then share them with others at school. Now someone mentioned you can download flash embeded video with Firefox? Can someone elaborate on this or should I just get off my lazy rear and start using firefox?

Yes, that is correct. That's one of the best things about Firefox; many of the things that used to (and still are) impossible in Internet Explorer, like downloading embedded video, is possible with Firefox and it's many Add-ons.

I would suggest that if you would like to download video at home to watch at school, download Firefox portable and VLC Media player portable onto a USB drive. (They won't take up much space, but the best part is being able to use Firefox (and your same bookmarks, etc.) on any computer you plug your USB drive into. )

Once you have Firefox installed, you can install Flash player if needed, and then go to this page and click the "Install Now" green box. This will add the Video Downloader extension into Firefox. When you restart Firefox, there will be an added icon to the browser window which will allow you to save the video from YouTube.

Since YouTube video is Flash video, it will save all the files in .flv format, which some media players may have trouble with. That is why I also suggested downloading VLC portable to your USB Drive, as VLC will play almost every and any video type known to mankind. If you have Firefox, VLC, and any saved videos all on your USB drive, you can then download any video and watch them on any computer.

[Doug G]

Thanks Art. I'm running Firefox now and have some catching up to do. Also found http://www.videodl.org/ where you paste in the youtube link and it then lets you download the flash video. Then use a stand alone flash player. Very nice and easy.

[Donut]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Yes, that is correct. That's one of the best things about Firefox; many of the things that used to (and still are) impossible in Internet Explorer, like downloading embedded video, is possible with Firefox and it's many Add-ons.

I would suggest that if you would like to download video at home to watch at school, download Firefox portable and VLC Media player portable onto a USB drive. (They won't take up much space, but the best part is being able to use Firefox (and your same bookmarks, etc.) on any computer you plug your USB drive into. )

Once you have Firefox installed, you can install Flash player if needed, and then go to this page and click the "Install Now" green box. This will add the Video Downloader extension into Firefox. When you restart Firefox, there will be an added icon to the browser window which will allow you to save the video from YouTube.

Since YouTube video is Flash video, it will save all the files in .flv format, which some media players may have trouble with. That is why I also suggested downloading VLC portable to your USB Drive, as VLC will play almost every and any video type known to mankind. If you have Firefox, VLC, and any saved videos all on your USB drive, you can then download any video and watch them on any computer.

Still make sure to watch your school rules if you're doing this. At our school Firefox is considered a proxy since the websense doesn't properly block things on it, and you can/will get suspended for using it.

Also, don't bother if they delete flash on your computers/disable peripheral device hookup (yes, in some rooms at our campus USB drives cannot be accessed).

[Graham Donaldson]

Originally Posted by Brandon Martus

That was in the design of CD-Media and still is a long-term goal; photos & papers were added just to completely replace the old gallery & white papers area.

It's lower priority on my list .. Fantasy FIRST and other things will be worked on before Videos in CD-Media.

That makes sense, Brandon... it was an idea I wanted to propose, because I didn't know if it had been proposed before.

[Alexa Stott]

You can also use GreaseMonkey to download videos. Someone has written a user script so a little red bar appears on the top of the page that says "Save video as.." Instructions for this process can be found here. They also have a link on the site to here, which is a different way to do the same thing.

There are also links to FLV players and converters on the first site, though I would go with VLC, like Art said before.