YouTube can be a great resource in the classroom. However, teachers often worry about advertisements or inappropriate content. Fortunately, there are several ways to make distraction-free YouTube videos available to students.
Redirect Link to your Video
The most straightforward solution is to provide an alternative link to the video. Purify Video is a free tool available on GitHub that generates a redirect link back to your video, bypassing YouTube’s occasional incorrect blocking of videos.
Step 1: Visit https://purify-video.github.io/
Step 2: Paste the YouTube link into the provided field.
Step 3: Copy the newly generated link.
Step 4: Share the new link with your students.
To copy the YouTube link, click the share arrow under the video and then click
Copy Link.
Embed Videos in Google Slides
Even if a video is marked as “Unavailable” from a student account, you can embed the YouTube video in Google Slides.
Step 1: Open a Google Slides presentation.
Step 2: Click Insert → Video from the top menu.
Step 3: Search for the video or paste the YouTube URL.
Step 4: Select the video and click Insert.
Step 5: Resize the embedded video to fill the slide, if desired.
Step 6: Share the Google Slides link with students, ensuring they have view-only access.
URL Hack for Full Screen YouTube Videos
This simple URL modification allows viewing YouTube videos in full-screen mode, removing ads and suggested videos.
Step 1: Locate the YouTube video URL.
Step 2: Insert a hyphen (-) between y and u in the youtube.com part of the URL.
For example, change
youtube.comtoyout-ube.com.
Step 3: Share the modified URL with students.
These tools and necessary work-arounds evolve. If you have other helpful tips, please share them.