How to guide student browsing with Focus Sessions and Filter Sessions Follow

In this article:

• Guide Browsing overview
• Filter Session
• Focus Session
• Guide Browsing templates
• Identifying, modifying and ending existing guided browsing sessions
• The student experience

Guide Browsing overview

The Guide Browsing feature in Highlights allows you to provide students with extra support as they learn how to navigate online responsibly. For example, you may want to keep students from accessing a website that has become a distraction. Or you may want them to focus on a set of websites to complete their class activity. With the Guide Browsing feature, each of your students can have a browsing experience that sets them up for success. 

Use Filter Sessions to block distracting sites, or Focus Sessions to restrict browsing to specific pages. Both options help keep students on task during class activities.

Filter Session

To set up a Filter Session:

1. Click Guide browsing in Highlights.

2. Select Set up a Filter session.

3. Enter up to 50 URLs that you want to block.

4. Set a session duration.

5. Choose who to apply it to (class, groups, or individual students).

6. (Optional) Toggle Yes to schedule for later.

7. Click Start session.

Focus Session

To set up a Focus Session:

1. Click Guide browsing in Highlights.

2. Select Set up a Focus session.

3. Enter up to 10 URLs you want students to access. These pages will open automatically.

4. Set a session duration.

5. Choose whether links stay open or return to original sites after the session.

6. Select who to apply it to.

7. (Optional) Toggle Yes to schedule for later.

8. Click Start session.

Note: Only one session can run at a time. Starting a new session ends the previous one.

Focus Sessions using login pages

Focus sessions work best with sites and URLs that students can visit directly, rather than websites that require them to log in. 

Usually, Highlights handles these scenarios. But some private sites redirect a student through multiple URLs before finally landing on the one you want them to view. Highlights doesn't currently handle these complex cases.

For example, if you want to focus your students on a private McGraw-Hill resource, your students would need to log in to the McGraw-Hill site first.

McGraw-Hill resources are located at catalog.mcgraw-hill.com, but the login page is a different URL.

If you know the login link, we recommend adding it, along with the resource link, to the same session.

1. Click Guide browsing

2. Select Set up a Focus session.

3. Add the login link. > Also add the resource link.

4. Select Only these page(s) if you'd like to prevent students from browsing to other pages.

5. Follow previously explained steps. > Click Start Session.

6. This will open two tabs in each student's browser, one for each link. Once the student logs in, they will be able to view the resource page.

Focus Sessions for Google Workspace: Gmail, Drive and Docs

If you'd like to focus learners on any of the Google Gmail, Drive and Docs tools:

1. Click Guide browsing

2. Select Set up a Focus session.

3. Enter https://mail.google.com. 

4. Enter https://drive.google.com.

5. Enter https://docs.google.com

6. Select The whole site(s).

7. Follow previously explained steps. > Click Start Session.

Note: We recommend specifying all three websites. This gives a better user experience for learners who are not logged in and are redirected by Google to a login page.

The "https://" prefix is required. If you forget it, Google will redirect your learners from http://mail.google.com to https://mail.google.com, and this will fail.

Guide Browsing templates

You can create Focus or Filter session templates to simplify the process of setting up a guided session. This is especially helpful for sessions that you reuse frequently. For example, you may have a daily bell ringer activity that you would like students to focus on when they start class. 

Creating a new template

1. Click Guide browsing.

2. Select Set up a Focus session or Setup a Filter session.
 

3. Follow previously explained steps. > Click Save as a template.

A template will save the websites, any settings for those websites and the length of the session. It will not save who the session is for or start times.

Starting a guided session from a template

1. Click Guide browsing.

2. Under My templates, click on the template you would like to use.

3. Review the details.

4. Click Start Session.

Delete Guide Browsing templates

1. Guide browsing

2. Under My templates, find the template you would like to delete.

3. Click the three dots next to the template.

4. Select Delete template.

Note: Deleted templates cannot be recovered, so please exercise caution when deleting templates!

Identifying, modifying and ending existing Guide Browsing sessions

When a guided browsing session is active, you can easily identify it by the yellow heading indicator.

You can also easily identify students who are in guided browsing sessions with the icon. This will be displayed in the Student Tile for any student in an active session. 

If you set up another session, the icon will also display next to the names of students who are in active sessions. 

Note: If you start a new session for a student whose browsing is already guided, it will override the previous session.

Ending a Guide Browsing session

If you need to stop a guided browsing session before it expires:

1. Click the End session button from the yellow active sessions bar.

2. Or if you have multiple guided sessions running and only want to end one, click the Review button. > Then click on the End Filter Session or End Focus Session button.

3. Clicking on the   icon in individual student panels also gives you the option to release select students. 

Editing guided browsing sessions after they've begun 

If you need to make changes to a guided session after it has started:

1. Click the Review button in the aqua bar at the top.

2. To add students to a Filter or Focus session, check that the student list is selected. > Then type in the students' names.

3. Click the Add student button.

4. To add links to a Filter or Focus session, select the links list. > Then add the link to the text box below.

5. Click Add link.

Removing a URL from an active Guide Browsing session

Teachers can also remove a URL from an active Focus or Filter session. This will give them more flexibility to provide personalized learning.

To remove the URL:

1. Click Review in the Active guided session bar at the top of your screen.

2. From the active session, select the links bar on the right.

3. Click the X next to the URL you want to remove from the guided browsing session. 

Note: If there is only one URL, you will need to end the guided browsing session instead.

The student experience

When a teacher starts a guided browsing session, students receive a pop-up message letting them know their browsing will be limited. It will also have a countdown to let them know when the guided browsing session will begin.

If a teacher starts a guided browsing session, and a student starts class a few minutes later, they will be automatically added to the existing session once they log in to their account. 

If students try to navigate away from a focused session they will automatically redirected to the allowed page.

If they try to navigate to a page being blocked in a filtered session, they will receive a message in that window letting them know their browsing is being guided by their teacher.

When the guided browsing session has expired, students will receive a pop-up notification: