How to guide students browsing with focus and filter sessions Follow

In this article:

• Guide browsing overview
• Filter sessions
• Focus sessions
• Focused sessions with login pages
• Focused sessions with Google Workspace
• Guide browsing templates
• Modifying and ending guided sessions
• The learner experience

Guide browsing overview

Guided browsing sessions are a great way to provide learners with extra support as they are learning to work online. Whether you want to restrict learners to a handful of websites for a specific lesson, or keep learners from accessing a website that has become a distraction, with guide browsing, you can make sure each of your students has the browsing experience that will help them be the most successful. 

Filter Session

If there are just a few websites that you would like to prevent students from accessing (i.e. sometimes students are able to listen to music during class but for this specific class you would like to block those sites), you can use the filter option in guide browsing. You can enter up to 10 pages to block during the session. Once initiated, students will be able to access any site except the specified sites.

To set up the session, click the Guide browsing button, then select Set up a Filter Session.

In the filter session modal, just enter the URLs you wish to block and press enter to confirm the links.

Then, decide how long you wish the session to last, and whether to apply the session to the entire class, specific groups of students, or select individuals. 

Finally, decide whether to start the session now or schedule it for a future time.

Focus Session

Focus sessions create a more restricted browsing experience for students. They can be especially helpful for online assessments, or when you are practicing a new skill with students and need them to stay in one part of the internet. 

These sessions can also be helpful for students who have trouble staying on task and need extra support getting their work done.

When setting up a focus session, you can input up to 10 URLs. All of the sites you enter will open on students’ devices and students will only be able to access the specified sites/pages.

To set up the session, click the Guide browsing button, then select Set up a Focus Session.

Focus sessions are set up similarly to Filter, but the URLs entered in the first text box are the only sites that students will be able to access. 

You will need to select who the session is for and if you want it to start right away, or schedule it for later. 

To set up a focus session, you will also need to decide whether to keep the tabs you’ve opened for students open at the end of the session, and whether to restore any other tabs that students had open when the sessions were initiated.

Note: Only one session can be active at any given time, and a new session will deactivate any existing sessions. For example, if a teacher begins a Filter session for one hour, then begins a 15-minute Focus session. Once the Focus session is complete, the Filter session will no longer be in effect, and students will be able to access any sites that may have been blocked.

Focused sessions through login pages

Focused sessions work best with sites and URLs that can be browsed to directly, whereas private sites and URLs require a login before they can be accessed. For example, you cannot access your Gmail account without logging in to Google first.

Usually, Highlights handles these scenarios ok, but some private sites redirect the student through multiple URLs before arriving at the desired site and Highlights doesn't currently handle these complex cases.

For example, if you want to focus your students to a private resource provided by McGraw-Hill, then your students would need to log in to the McGraw-Hill site before they can access this private resource.

McGraw-Hill resources are located on catalog.mcgraw-hill.com, but the login page is on a different URL connected.mcgraw-hill.com which the students need to log in through.

You have the option of asking students to first login to McGraw-Hill before focusing them to catalog.mcgraw-hill.com, but if you know the login URL then we recommend just specifying both URLs in the same session by:

1. Click Guide browsing, then select Set up a focused session
2. Specify all URLs required for browsing and logging in, ie: catalog.mcgraw-hill.com and connected.mcgraw-hill.com in this example
3. Select "Limit browsing to anywhere in these site(s)" if you'd like to prevent students browsing outside these websites
4. Click Start session
5. This will open two tabs in each student browser - one for each URL. Once the student logs in, they can click on an ebook to view it. 

Note: In this scenario, there is no way to force the student to select a specific book - but Highlights will show the book each student selected. If a student chooses a different book from the rest of the class, the Activity Viewer will show this in the "Unique Activity" panel.

We recommend you ask students to sign into private URLs before initiating a focused session that requires a login, but you can specify all necessary URLs if they are known.

Focused sessions with Google Workspace: Gmail, Drive, and Docs

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

1. Open Guide browsing
2. Select Focus Session
3. Check the "Limit browsing to anywhere in these site(s)" option
4. Enter the website https://mail.google.com 
5. Enter the website https://drive.google.com
6. Enter the website https://docs.google.com
7. Click on the Start session button to start the focused 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 say 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 if you have a daily bell ringer activity that you would like students to focus on when they start class. 

Creating a new template

1. From the Highlights tab of any Hāpara class, click Guide browsing
2. Choose to either Set up a Focus Session or Setup a Filter Session
   
3. Configure the session as required and click Save as a template

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

Starting a guided session from a template

1. From the Highlights tab of any Hāpara class, click Guide browsing
2. Under the Filter or Focus session, open the Choose a template drop down menu.
3. Click on the template you would like to use
4. Click Set up a Focus Session or Set up a Filter Session depending on the type of session you would like to start.
5. Confirm the details of the session in the modal, then select the class, student(s) or group(s) for whom you would like to start the session. 
6. Click Start session or schedule the session for later. 

How to delete guide browsing templates

1. From the Highlights tab of any Hāpara class, click Guide browsing
2. Open the Choose a template drop down menu and highlight the template you'd like to delete in the template drop down
   
3. Click the Trash Can icon to delete the template, then confirm you would like to delete the template in the next modal
   

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

 

Identifying, modifying and ending existing guided sessions

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

You can also easily identify focused and filtered students via the icon. This will display in the tile for any student in an active session. 

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

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

Ending a guided session

If you need to stop a guided session before the expiration of the set period, you can do this by clicking Release all students from the aqua active sessions bar, or if you have multiple guided sessions running and only want to end one, you can click the Review button, and then click on the End Session button for that session. 

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

Editing guided sessions after they've begun 

If you need to make changes to a guided session after it's begun, you can do so by clicking the "Review" button in the aqua bar at the top of Highlights. 

To add students to a Filter or Focus session, check that the student list is selected in the review modal, then type in the students' email addresses in the text box below the student list, then click "add student". 

To add links to a Filter or Focus session, select the links list, then add the link to the text box below, then click "add link". 

For Focus sessions, you also have the option to edit what happens at the end of the session from the review modal.

The learner experience of Guided Sessions

When a teacher initiates a guided session, learners receive a pop-up message letting them know their browsing will be limited, with a countdown to let them know when the guided session will begin.

If a teacher starts a Guided session, and then a few minutes later a learner turns up, when the learner logs into their school account, they will be automatically added to the existing session. 

If learners attempt to navigate away from a focused session they will automatically redirected to the allowed page. If they attempt 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 session has expired, learners will receive a pop up notification: