Canvas and Youtube links

Question

I have recently shared a youtube link with students in Canvas. When the students click link to go to youtube, it defaults to kids.youtube.com instead of youtube.com. The only way I have found for them to get access this way is to sign out of their district managed google account on their ipad and click the link again. Can you give me any suggestions as to why it defaults to kids.youtube instead of youtube?

JeffCampbell · Accepted Answer

I'm not sure about why it defaults, but thought I might share an idea. I'm not sure if you are sharing the link with students through modules or on a page/assignment. The latter option has a button in the ribbon that looks like a plug. Click on that to access an Apps menu. If YouTube is on your list, it will pull open a pop-up menu. Paste the share link into the search bar and select the desired video. It will embed the video into the page. If you have not done it this way, give it a shot. This allows the video to be watched from within Canvas rather than sending the student to YouTube. You might try this to see if it makes the video display correctly for them instead of directing them to kids.youtube.

Alternatively, if you have access to Canvas Studio, you can create a collection in Studio and add YouTube videos to the list. Then go to a Page or Assignment and embed a video from Canvas Studio. That might also create a workaround, plus you can start adding videos to the collection to help keep track of commonly used ones.

Chris · Accepted Answer

I'm not 100% sure on this either, being in higher-ed myself, but I believe from my research on google that this might be tied to the Google accounts the students are using.  It appears the redirect to kids may happen because of and age of the person logged in, and aside form logging in with the google account of an adult, i'm not sure if there is a workaround.  The kids version appears designed to limit the kind of content children may see.  At least in my view this is more of a google "thing" than anything Canvas itself is doing, but if anyone has better info, they're welcome to share here!

-Chris