Engaging educational videos spark creativity and help viewers absorb key information, making them an essential way for K-12 students to learn. But simply sharing links to online videos isn’t the safest way to deliver educational content to students. Videos—and students—need to be protected by using a secure video platform.

A secure video platform for K-12 schools should be able to eliminate distractions and unrelated videos, track student activity, and protect student-made content.

Eliminate distractions and unrelated videos

Many teachers use YouTube to share videos without realizing how distracting and cluttered the platform can be for learners. It is extremely easy on YouTube for students to stumble upon “related videos,” which can often be inappropriate or not related at all. Unfortunately, there isn’t a way for teachers to prevent this unless they use a secure video platform.

A dedicated educational video platform like Panopto can protect K-12 students from dangerous, unrelated or inappropriate content while streaming videos in a couple different ways:

• Panopto’s video player can embed right into the website or learning management system (LMS) teachers already use for their classes. Using this video player, teachers can create playlists and include features like annotations, closed captions, in-video search and additional document attachments. With all of the information for class in one place, students won’t have to look elsewhere and get distracted along the way.
• Panopto empowers teachers to set up their own learning environment so they can provide students with both private and public videos. That means teachers aren’t limited to their own original video content. Panopto’s YouTube embedding feature allows teachers to embed videos from YouTube into Panopto videos. This helps teachers put all the videos students need in one secure place.

Track student activity

With a secure video platform like Panopto, teachers can access reports that show which students have watched which videos and for how long. Teachers appreciate this capability because it helps them be sure students are completing all lessons and guides, and can verify students are spending an appropriate amount of time on their schoolwork.

Another opportunity to keep students on track is through Panopto’s video quizzing. Teachers can create and add multiple choice, checkbox, and true/false questions to their recordings in seconds, directly from the Panopto online video editor. Each quiz automatically pauses video playback, allowing viewers to take as much time as needed with each question. Not only does this make for a more engaging experience for the student, but it also helps reinforce what they’re learning and keeps them from simply playing a video in one window while they surf the web in another.

Protect student-made video content

Teachers who want to expand video education often assign projects for students to create and submit video content. This gives students an opportunity to learn important media skills like planning, recording and publishing content. But schools should also be sure they’re protecting that student-made video content from unwanted viewers.

In order to protect the privacy of your school’s students, your video platform should include security features like:

• Restricting views by users or groups and by individual video or playlist. If the student’s video content is made just for the teacher or for the whole classroom to watch, a secure video platform will allow for these nuances in viewer permissions.
• Restricting videos by requiring a login form or password. This ensures only individuals associated with the class or school can access the content.
• Restricting video viewing by IP address. This feature allows you to restrict video viewing to a specific building, computer lab, classroom or even individual computer.

By default, videos uploaded to your Panopto library or live streamed are only viewable by users who are given access. While many video platforms offer some limited security levels and features, no other provider comes close to offering the same macro to micro range of security solutions as Panopto. 

When you onboard with Panopto, our team works directly with you to ensure the video security features at your school protect students at the highest level that you desire.  Protecting students with a secure video management system enables them to focus on learning in a safe environment. 

To explore our video security features at your school, request a free trial or set up a demo with the Panopto team.