Monday, November 17, 2014

Movies on the Apple TV Home Screen

I love having an Apple TV as part of my digital teaching arsenal!  I airplay to it to display digital books I am reading with my students.  Students can share their digital creations with the class and work together with a single iPad in a center.  I also have my daily Essential Questions and standards showing as the Apple TV screensaver.  

I love everything about it, except for one thing!  When I turn it on, this is what comes up on the menu screen.

The movies listed on top are not my purchased movies, they are advertisements for movies available to buy or rent.  As you can see the movies that are advertised are not all completely appropriate!  I can just imagine one of my first graders going home saying they saw the "Sex Tape" movie on Mrs. Phillips' TV!!!!!!!!!  I had to find a fix and quick!

Luckily the fix is pretty easy.  Go to the General Settings menu and select restrictions.  This is the place you can add restrictions to the Apple TV.  Turn on restrictions and set your 4-digit access code.  Then select to hide the rental and purchase option.  This will remove the advertisements!  You can still access the option to purchase or rent from the Apple TV, you will just need the code.  

Now when I turn on my Apple TV I get the screen above.  I no longer stress over what movie advertisements my first graders will see.  Now I love everything about my Apple TV in my classroom!