Bloxx launches exciting new product for YouTube Filtering
At BETT 2010, which starts today, we will be unveiling Bloxx Media Filter, a secure web appliance which enables schools and students to obtain all of the educational benefits of online social media content, such as YouTube, in a safe and secure online environment.
The Bloxx Media Filter lets teachers quickly identify curriculum related YouTube video clips and with just a few clicks tag, assign these to a subject area and age range and submit the clips for approval. Once approved, students can easily search and view clips which are streamed directly from the YouTube site through the appliance directly to classroom PCs, without related video clips, contextual advertising or user submitted comments being displayed.
YouTube has been one of the biggest Internet success stories. Launched in 2005, the company was acquired by Google in 2006 for US $1.65 billion. An estimated 65,000 video clips are uploaded to the site every day and the site is now one of the most popular sites on the Web and is currently the eighth most popular website visited by 6-11 year olds.
There’s a huge range of content available on YouTube but a large percentage of this content is not suitable for use in education. There have been well documented incidents of extremely bad content appearing on YouTube, including the site being flooded with pornographic videos last May. In the last few years YouTube has also gained notoriety for hosting videos of happy-slapping, street violence, joy-riding and pupil and teacher bullying.
In addition, comments posted by users on videos will often contain extremely offensive language – even if the content of the video itself is harmless.
Despite these issues, YouTube now has a substantial and growing amount of content that could be an extremely valuable learning resource, helps improve student engagement and has a positive impact on learning outcomes.
Due to the complex way that YouTube media is stored and disseminated, filtering YouTube content is virtually impossible using traditional Web content filters and until now ICT managers have only been able to allow or block access to the entire YouTube site. If a school decides to allow access to YouTube then they cannot allow access to just specific video clips – it’s all or nothing.
The Bloxx Media Filter eliminates the need for IT managers to allow students access to the entire YouTube site, which could allow students to inadvertently view inappropriate content. Since only approved and age rated video clips can be viewed, this eliminates the risk of students viewing inappropriate material or comments.
Media Filter uses Active Stream Filtering to extract the required URL and in conjunction with the submission and approval processes, ensures that only approved media content can be viewed by users.
To read more about Media Filter download the Media Filter Datasheet.
