Video Victory

Friday. Second period. 

I think the note I left for the teacher really encapsulates how this went: 

Oh my. That did not go well.

Not them. The class was fine. I mean the video…

We had some, ahem, technical difficulties. 

AP World History. Their AP test had been the previous day, so it's movie time.

Back in the day, that meant popping a tape into the VCR and hitting play. Then, later, things got a little more complicated with DVDs (but only a little more complicated). 

Nowadays, videos are streaming. The classrooms have projectors (not a tiny TV screen) and speakers built into the ceiling (not TV speakers), so the rooms are set up for a great movie experience. But getting the videos to play...

I had a similar experience last month when I covered a U.S. history class. (As a matter of fact, that classroom was next door to this classroom.) But then I had time to prepare. 

Ms. G had put a link to the video she wanted to screen into the students' Google Classroom. I was to have a student log in and then use that link to project the video for everyone. 

In theory, this should work out fine. In practice...

The link that Ms. G provided ended up being blocked by the school's internet provider. It wasn't a website I'm familiar with, and a bunch of warnings popped up when we tried to access the site. 

However, another student was able to get the video to play on her computer, so we swapped computers connected to the projector, and all was well... for about five minutes. That's when the same block appeared. 

I had one more trick to play. I figured that perhaps a teacher's account (mine) might not get the block, so I logged in, and under my Google profile, I added in another (student's) account, accessed his Google Classroom, and tried the link.

It worked!

I crossed my fingers. It played. It played for a while. And then the buffer wheel came up...

But I never did get the block again. Phew. I was able to bypass the buffer wheel and keep the video going until the end of the period.

We got to see 35 minutes. In a period that lasts an hour and six minutes. 

Still, I consider that a victory. 

There has got to be a better way to show a video on a sub day. But when the thing a teacher wants to show is behind a paywall, it's hard. If someone can figure this one out, they'd make a mint.