Can’t access Google Slides? Here’s the workaround

If you have purchased an escape room on TpT or another marketplace, you may have discovered the hard way that your school district blocks outside Google links on your students’ devices. Not all schools do this, but if you have been disappointed to find that you can’t use that really cool escape room with your students for this reason, I have good news!

If your school is blocking outside links, here is a workaround that you can use so that the escape room will work for your students. It takes a little bit of careful setup, but you only have to do it once, and the game will be ready any time you want to assign it to a new group of students.

Why does this happen with escape room games?

The first thing to understand is that your school is blocking student access to links from people they don’t know. When you buy an escape room, it is generally set up so that there is a Google Form with locks that are opened to advance them through the game and discover the final code. To do this, each lock will often have instructions and a link to a Google Slide with a puzzle or challenge for them to work out. When the students figure out the code for that lock, they enter it into the Google Form, and the game advances.

Now, when you buy the escape room, you make a copy of the Google Form and it’s added to your account. So when you assign the Google Form, your school recognizes it as your document, and your students can access it. However, within the Google Form, there are links to Google Slides. And those, which the creator of the game has set up to make the game work smoothly, are connected to that person’s account. This account is one that your district does NOT recognize. And therein lies the problem.

The solution is to reformat the game so that the links are directing to someone the district recognizes and allows. To do this, you will need to make copies of all the links in the game and replace the seller’s links with your own links. These new links will then be connected to your school account, and will not be blocked.

Ok, so how do I reformat the game to work with my school?

Well, it may seem complicated at first, but just take it one step at a time, and you’ll find that it is pretty straightforward. Following are step-by-step instructions to reformat the activities. I have also created a template to help the process go more smoothly. You can even watch a video of me going through the process if you feel a visual would be helpful.

Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to do it quickly in the future with other escape rooms you may purchase.

I want to give another reminder to make sure to follow all the steps carefully because one missing step will mean that the game will not be playable. For this reason, it is extremely important to test out the finished product before you assign it to your students.

If your school is blocking outside links, follow these steps for a workaround

1. From your school account, open the escape room (Google Form). This is your own editable copy that you made when you first purchased the escape room.
2. Go through the escape room and find all the sections that have a Google Slides link in the student instructions, and copy each link into the template. There is a place to type in the lock number (or some other identifying information so you can easily find it later on) and then next to each lock number, in the ORIGINAL LINK column, paste the link from the Google Form.
3. After you have pasted all the links, open the first link. You will be prompted to make a copy. This is where it is very important to make sure that you are in your school account.
4. After the copy opens, click the SHARE button on the top right of your screen. Under GET LINK, you will need to edit the sharing permissions. This might look different for some teachers, but if you have an option for users within your school district, choose that one. If not, try “anyone with the link can view.” (If students are still being denied access, this is where the problem will be, so adjust the permissions if necessary).
5. Copy the link at the top of the screen and paste it into the YOUR NEW LINK column next to the original link. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for each link in your escape room.
6. For each of the new links you created, delete everything after the last backslash, (it will start with the word edit). Type the word copy after the backslash.
7. Now, you can make short links, which is highly recommended to keep the instructions looking neater. You can use bitly.com or any other shortening tool you prefer. Copy each of your new links (check once again that you have changed the links so that they all end with: /copy) into the shortening tool and create a short link. Paste each of these next to its respective long link.
8. Go back through the escape room, and locate all the locks that have links to Google Slides. Replace each given link with the short link you just created.
9. Now everything should be ready to go! Follow the instructions given in the escape room you purchased for assigning it to your students (after first doing a trial run from a student account to make sure that everything is working properly.)

Click HERE to get a Google Slides version of the above instructions with the referenced template to help you put everything together easily.

Click HERE for a video where I walk through the whole process of setting up the new links and editing your Google Form.

So now, even if your school is blocking outside links, with this workaround, you and your students can start enjoying escape rooms in your classroom!

Love escape rooms? Check out these fun digital escape room games: