How to close websites for students Follow
In this article:
Selecting a reason for closing tabs
How to close tabs from Class View
How to close tabs from Browser Tabs
How to close tabs from the Activity Viewer
How to close tabs from Current Screens
When students wander into distracting or unsafe online content, Hāpara Highlights gives you tools to close their tabs and steer them back to task. Before closing a tab, it’s often helpful to view the site yourself or send a gentle prompt—this empowers students to practice good digital citizenship. If a student repeatedly goes off-task, consider blocking that URL through a Filter session.
Close tabs instantly
Hāpara has released an update to Highlights that streamlines how teachers manage student browsing. Teachers can now close a student’s browser tab instantly from Class View without entering a reason. This features saves teachers time during instruction and helps them quickly manage distractions when students are off-task.
When a teacher closes a tab instantly, the student will still see a simple message letting them know the tab has been closed and which teacher closed it.
This feature is enabled by default but can be turned off by administrators in the Hāpara Admin Console if needed.
How to close tabs from Class View
You will notice a lightning bolt icon on the student tiles. Clicking the lightning bolt will instantly close the student's tab on their Chrome browser without having to provide a reason.
Quickly closing open tabs helps redirect student attention in real time, minimizing off-task behavior and keeping learning on track.
You can also close student tabs by clicking the X symbol next to the lightning bolt in each Student Tile. This will open a window for you to provide students with a reason for closing the tab or close and block the URL for the individual student or whole class.
The reason will then appear on the student’s screen.
How to close and block tabs
To help students stay on task, you may choose to block a website for a duration of time that you choose. This create a filter session for the student or class.
Closing a site from the Class View will display a popup window with options to block for the individual student or for the class.
Select the option to Block for this student or Block for the class.
From the drop-down menu, select how long you would like to block access for (up to 600 minutes at a time).
Click Block for the student.
Blocking the site will create a guided browsing session, and you will see the yellow bar displayed.
The students who are in the guided session will have the icon on their Student Tile.
When blocking sites for individual students, it will create multiple filtered browsing sessions. These can be reviewed and managed from the Review button in the yellow bar.
Note: These sessions can be set up as individual student sessions or class sessions. You cannot run individual and whole class sessions together.