Options for Uploading Videos to YouTube with School Filtering

I’m in the midst of teaching my STEM students how to use the iPad app “Explain Everything” to create short, narrated slideshows about the cantilever spans project we’ve been doing recently. My students share iPads on our STEM cart, and do not have their own Google logins to upload videos to YouTube. So, after they complete their narrated slideshows and export their finished videos to their iPad camera roll, the challenge is: How can we readily get these videos uploaded to YouTube?

This situation is complicated further by the fact that YouTube uploads are blocked on our school network by our content filter, unless a teacher logs in in to bypass the filter. Here are two ways I’ve dealt with these constraints and requirements. I am sharing this post today because one of the librarians in our district ran into this same problem and asked for help!

OPTION 1: YOUTUBE CAPTURE

YouTube Capture is a wonderful, free iPad app which can readily upload videos from your camera roll IF that iPad has Internet access permitting YouTube uploads. You have to login with your Google account in the YouTube Capture app first to upload with it. This is a disadvantage if you’re using shared iPads on a cart, since those account credentials remain cached/saved on each iPad and grant any student or other user complete access to not only upload YouTube videos but also delete videos from your YouTube account. This is something that teachers need to carefully supervise and monitor, if they keep the YouTube Capture account logged into their Google / YouTube account.

With default student Internet access settings in our district, the YouTube Capture app just “queues” videos for upload and they never actually transfer to the site. You can see the first video in the screenshot below is “queued.”

  by  Wesley Fryer 

The workaround for this, on our school network, is to bypass the Internet content filter by logging in with teacher credentials. I do this by opening the Safari web browser and trying to visit Pandora.com, which is blocked by default. In the upper left corner of the screen, the current wifi username (initially, anonymous) is shown. I click on the “NOT YOU?” link to login with my teacher userID and password.

  by  Wesley Fryer 

  by  Wesley Fryer 

After logging in, return to the YouTube Capture app and tap to resume (or in this case START initially) your upload. The file should upload to YouTube fine now!

  by  Wesley Fryer 

OPTION 2: INSTASHARE

There are some cumbersome login requirements with the first option described above. Not only do you have to login with your Google account on each iPad, you also have to login with your district network credentials in Safari to bypass the content filter on EACH iPad. This is a big pain and requires a lot of steps / clicks / touches.

For this reason, I’m using a different workflow currently with my students to upload their finished videos to YouTube. I have the free iPad app Instashare (also linked in the recommended apps for “iPad Media Camp,” in case you need this link again) installed on all the iPads in my cart. Students can open the app and transfer their exported video directly to MY iPad or iPhone, which I can then use to upload the video to YouTube. This solution does NOT require me to login to the YouTube Capture app on each iPad, or bypass the Internet filter on each student iPad. I just have to do those things on MY iPad or iPhone, which I use to upload each video.

To use Instatransfer, make sure the app is open both on the iPad you want to SEND FROM and on the iPad or iPhone you want to RECEIVE the transfer. They both have to be connected to the same wifi network, too. In the screenshot below, you can see my iPhone (“Elendil”) shows up as an available iOS device on the left side to accept transfers. Now, simply drag the video (or photo) you want to transfer and drop it on the name of the iOS device to receive it. You must click ALLOW on the receiving  iOS device to initiate the transfer. Don’t close either app while the transfer is active.

  by  Wesley Fryer 

My favorite iOS media transfer app is Photo Sync, but it’s not free. Some other media transfer apps are available, but Instashare is the only one I’ve found that allows for free video and photo transfers. Some other “free” apps require an in-app purchase to transfer videos.

Hopefully those tips can be helpful to you if you’re running into similar challenges uploading student video projects to YouTube behind a school content filter!

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On this day..

• Steeply Discounted Digital Storytelling Workshops: June 5-6 & June 19-20 (Oklahoma City) – 2013
• iPad Media Camp: June & July 2013 in Oklahoma & Kansas – 2013
• Apps and Clouds: An Introduction to Internet Resources – 2012
• Creativity unleashed with LEGO Stopmotion music videos and movie scene re-enactments – 2010
• Join conversations in the LIVE DEN Virtual Conference – 2010
• Tales from an adventurer living off the grid – 2008
• links for 2008-04-24 – 2008
• Ian Jukes shares thoughts on YouTube – 2007
• PBWikis ad-free for educators! – 2007
• Golf, creativity, failure and learning – 2007