Focus Video clips with Turn Off the Lights

I use video clips a lot in my science class. Relevant YouTube clips can make teaching many concepts easier and more engaging, and we all know our students love their screen time! Until recently, most video clips I pulled up had the typical trap...students would often focus on the side information that was available before I could make the video full screen.  Or at the end of the video they inevitably ask to watch other clips that may or may not be relevant to the lesson you are trying to teach, often drawing attention away from what just covered. 

A simple Chrome extension called "Turn Off the Lights" streamlines the process of showing clips. When visiting a site containing the video, simply click on the small light bulb icon in the upper right corner of your Chrome browser.  This will darken the rest of the webpage and will leave only the video visible.  When the video is over, the screen will stay dark.  All video controls reappear with a simple hover of the mouse, so you can still pause as needed.

Before the lights are off

After the lights are off

OnYouTube, Turn Off the Lights can automatically resize your video to the largest size so the process of presenting the video is streamlined even more. 

Turn Off the Lights uses flash detection so it works with virtually any site that contains video content. So if you frequently show videos from places like Discovery Education or news sites like CNN, etc. you can still you use Turn Off the Lights and limit all the other distracting clutter. 

Turn off the Lights is a Chrome Extension which is free and easy to add to your browser via the Chrome Web Store. If you need assistance, please see an ITRT! We are happy to help!