What can I do with Hāpara Highlights? Follow

In this article:

Set up guided browsing

Check on students’ progress online

Communicate with students

Help students reflect on digital citizenship

Uses for Highlights

Hāpara Highlights gives teachers real-time visibility into students' online activity. It also allows teachers to share links, guide browsing, pause screens and communicate with students. Teachers can also access students' Google Drive files.

Set up guided browsing

Guided browsing is a Highlights feature that allows you to encourage active learning by setting up or scheduling guided browsing sessions with focused parameters.

You have two set-up options:

• Focus Session: Give students access to only a few websites that you specify
• Filter Session: Prevent students from accessing websites that you specify

Focusing or filtering browsing sessions helps students stay on their learning path without outside distractions. Over time, you can give them more responsibility with their browsing to teach digital citizenship skills.  

You can also schedule these guided practice sessions for a later time or date or repeat them.

Check on students’ progress online

Highlights also has several features that allow you to check in on how students are doing during an online lesson.

View browsing progress

The following features give you a bird’s eye view into how students are browsing the internet:

• Activity Viewer
• Class View

You can easily see:

• Which websites students are visiting
• Whether students are staying on task in their online activity
• Screenshots of the websites they’re looking at

All three allow you to check on students’ progress online and have conversations with students about their progress. Whether you give students positive feedback or redirect them back onto a website for class, Highlights quickly gives you the insight you need.

You can also use the information in Activity Viewer and Class View to set up guided browsing sessions. Highlights is an excellent tool for guided practice with students because you can always see their screens and watch as they practice applying a concept for the first time.

View Google Drive assignments

The Drive button allows you to see students’ most recently modified Google Drive assignments. You can also search for any document in students’ Google Drives to view their progress.

Communicate with students

Additionally, in Highlights you can easily communicate with students about their online activity progress. Communication features include:

• Announcements to student, a group or the class. To do this, click the Announce button in the top right-hand corner of your screen
• From the student tile, send an announcement or email the student directly. 

You can be in constant contact with the student and put out fires when they happen. Instead of a student going weeks without understanding a concept, you could potentially reverse that misunderstanding in minutes.

Help students reflect on digital citizenship

Another way you can guide students in Highlights is with Snaps. This tool provides you and the student with concrete documentation of a student’s online activity. It gives you an image of what the student was viewing, as well as information about when it was taken.

During your conversation with a student about their online activity, the Snap can provide a reminder of their progress. This can help the student reflect on their digital citizenship skills, as well as allow you to reinforce the behaviors you want to see. 

Uses for Highlights