How do I Communicate with Students in Highlights?

While using Hapara Highlights, you can communicate with students within seconds. Highlights has three main communication features available to all teachers:

• Announce
• Email
• Snaps

These features allow you to build relationships with your students, give consistent formative feedback, and provide additional structure and support. At any point in the online learning process, you can send students feedback in Highlights.

Send an Announcement

In Highlights, you can send an announcement to individual students, groups or the class. The message can be 170 characters or less, and once you send it, it will pop up on student screens instantaneously. It’s a great way to give quick, concise feedback such as positive comments, redirections or time reminders. You can even include an emoji.

There are two ways to send an announcement to students.

Blue Announce Button

1. From any of the tabs in Highlights, click the blue Announce button in the top right-hand corner.

2.Select The Class, Student(s), or Groups.

3. Type your announcement in the text box.

4. Click Add Emoji, if you'd like to include an emoji.

5. If needed, select the student(s) or group(s)

6. Then click Send Announcement at the bottom.

7. The announcement will instantly appear on the student's screen. They can click OK after they view the announcement. Once they do, the announcement will disappear.

Announce Icon on Student Tiles

1. From Browser Tabs or Announce Icon located on an individual Student Tile.

2. Type your announcement in the text box.

3. Click Add Emoji, if you'd like to include an emoji.

4. Then click Send Announcement.

Email Students

Highlights also allows you to send an email to students, which is great when you want to give more lengthy feedback about a recent learning activity, student collaboration or progress. With this feature, you don’t have to scroll through your class roster to start an email.

Instead, Highlights allows you to email directly from a student’s individual Student Tile in Browser Tabs or Current Screens.

To email a student:

1. On their Student Tile, click the Three Dots to open the drop-down menu.

2. Select Email.

3. It will automatically open a blank email from your school email account. It will also be addressed to the student's school email account.

4. Then type your email and sent it.

5. The student will see the email when they view their Student Dashboard notifications.

Share Snaps with Feedback

A Snap is a screenshot of a student's browsing activity. It also includes:

• The student's name
• The date and time the Snap was taken
• Whether the Snap related to a single student or a group of students
• The website address the student or group viewed
• A timeline of the browsing activity

You can save Snaps and show them to students as concrete evidence when providing feedback. It's also a great way to communicate with parents and co-teachers to update them on a student's learning progress.

In Highlights, you can take Snaps in the Activity Viewer, Browser Tabs, or Current Screens.

Take a Snap from the Activity Viewer:

1. Hover your cursor over the student's activity.

2. Click the Camera Icon to instantly take a Snap.

Take a Snap from Browser Tabs:

1. On a Student Tile click the Three Dots to open the drop-down menu.

2. Select View Screen.

3. At the bottom of the screenshot, click Take a Snap.

Take a Snap from Current Screens:

1. Select the image of what the student is viewing on their screen.

2. A larger view of the screenshot will open.

3. At the bottom, click Take a Snap.

Find your Saved Snaps

Snaps are saved for seven days in Highlights.

1. In Highlights, click the Snaps tab at the top of your page.

2. Select the correct Snap to see a larger view of the screenshot, along with the Snap information.

Send Feedback to the Student

1. Select the correct Snap to open a larger view of the screenshot.

2. Click Send Learner(s) Feedback, located in the top right-hand corner.

3. Verify that the student's name in the template is correct.

4. Select from the feedback templates options.

5. Type the subject and message into the boxes.

6. Select Include Timeline + Current Screen. These details will be sent to the student.

7. Click Send Feedback.

Email a Copy of a Snap

You can also email a copy of the Snap to yourself if you’d like to keep it for longer than seven days. This also allows you to later forward it to a parent or a co-teacher along with feedback you want to provide about the student’s progress. 

1. Click the Snaps tab at the top of your page.

2. Select the correct Snap to see a larger view of the screenshot, along with the Snap information.

3. Click Email me a Copy in the top right-hand corner.

4. When you visit your email, you'll see a High lights email that has the Snap information along with an attached screenshot.

Quick guide to communication in Highlights

How do I Pause Screens in Highlights?

Pausing a lesson is a strategy that can serve a number of purposes, including checking for understanding, asking students to discuss with peers, redirecting students who are off track and giving students time to reflect.

But how does it work when you’re conducting an online lesson? When you have a classroom full of students looking at screens, pausing can be more challenging than during other kinds of lessons.

Hapara Highlights has a feature that streamlines this process and helps you ensure that students are with you every step of the way. This feature is called Pause Screens.

How to use the Pause Screens Feature

In Highlights, you can access Pause Screens in Browser Tabs or Current Screens.

To access Browser Tabs or Current Screens:

1. Log in through app.hapara.com. 

2. Select you class. 

3. Click Highlights at the top of your page.

4. Then click Browser Tabs or Current Screens at the top of your page.

When you're ready to pause all student screens across your class, follow these steps:

1. Find the white Pause Screens button on the top right-hand side of your screen.

2. Toggle the button to the On position.

3. A warning message with a 5-second timer will appear, letting you know that the students' screens are about to be paused. This will give you a chance to cancel it if you need to.

4. All student screens in the class will then pause. This will last for 15 minutes, unless you decide to end the session earlier.

5. To end the session, toggle the Pause Screens  button back to the Off position.

Releasing Individual Students

Sometimes you’ll want to let individual students continue working online while you keep other students’ screens paused. For example, for differentiated learning, some students may be ready to transition back to their online work. At the same time, you may want to continue showing the steps to a math problem to other students in the class.

After you’ve paused screens for all the students in your class who are online, you can release students individually.

To release individual students from the session:

1. Hover over the individual student's Student Tile

2. Click Release this student.

Pause Screens Teaching Strategies

There are many ways to apply screen pausing in online sessions. You can use the Pause Screens feature for both simple and more complex interventions.

Redirection and Reminders

Through the tabs in Highlights (Activity Viewer, Browser Tabs or Current Screens), you may see that students need to be redirected. You can use the Pause Screens feature to make a quick announcement and redirect the class. You can also use this feature to get your students’ attention to remind them about a step in the lesson. 

Checks for Understanding

Before sending students off to complete an assignment in any lesson, it’s crucial to make sure they understand the key concepts and skills you’ve been teaching. Use Pause Screens to check for understanding and make sure all students are ready for independent practice.

Spotlighting Excellence

You can also use Pause Screens to stop the class and talk them through an exemplar of student work. Not only will this make that student’s day, but giving the class an example helps make learning expectations clear.

Think-Pair-Shares and Group Discussion

Some students need a chance to discuss concepts and hear different perspectives. You can pause student screens at that point and ask students to talk to a partner about the assignment. You could also lead a quick whole group discussion to break up the lesson.

Behavior Management

When your Highlights screen tells you that most of the class is distracted, you can use the Pause Screens feature to address the issue and start a conversation about digital citizenship.

Reflection and Synthesis

Pause screens is also helpful when you want students to reflect during a lesson. Once you pause the students’ screens, ask students to do a quick-write in response to a prompt or reflect on their learning progress. This can be valuable time for students to solidify their understanding and fit ideas more securely into their existing schemas.

How do I Guide Student Browsing?

Guide Browsing is a Hapara Highlights feature that allows you to curate students’ online learning experiences, as well as keep them on task. As a result, you can create meaningful online lessons that are tailored to a student's individual learning needs and interests.

With the Guide Browsing feature, you can limit students’ access to specific websites to help students practice safe browsing or focus on an activity. You can also give students more browsing freedom but prevent them from visiting a few particular sites.

This feature also allows you to differentiate instruction by setting up guided browsing sessions for individual students, student groups or the entire class. Plus, you can schedule guided browsing sessions ahead of time. This helps you make the most of your instructional time and makes planning for substitute teacher days simple.

There are two types of guided browsing sessions: focus sessions and filter sessions.

Focus Sessions

Focus Sessions give students access to only a few specific websites.

What You can do With Focus Sessions

• Enter up to 10 websites that students can access during the session
• Specify if students can visit the whole site or only a specific page within a website
• Establish how long the session will last
• Determine what happens when the session ends (will tabs stay open / will students' original tabs be restored)
• Set up the session for the whole class, specific students, or groups
• Schedule the session ahead of time
• Save your session as a template or use a template you've already created

Why Focus Sessions Help Learning

Focus sessions are great for times that you need students to work with certain websites or documents. For example, you can set up a focus session if you want students to complete a Google Forms quiz you created but not search for answers elsewhere online.

Or you may want students to decide on a research topic for their science project, so during the focus session, you only give them access to the National Geographic Kids website. Another way to use this feature is by setting up a focus session when students are learning at home because of inclement weather. You can add the websites you want them to work on, and parents won’t have to worry about what their child needs to do for class.

How to Set up a Focus Session

1. Click the blue Guide Browsing button.

2. Select Set up a Focus Session.

3. Type the website links you want students to access.

4. Select The Whole Site(s) or Only The Page(s) – This gives students access to any page within the website you list or access to only the specific page you listed.

5. Select the amount of time you want the session to last.

6. Next to Keep all Tabs Introduced in this Session Open, toggle to Yes or No.

7. Next to Restore Students' Original Tabs, toggle to Yes or No.

8. Select The Class, Student(s), or Group(s).

9. To schedule the session for later, toggle to Yes.

10. Then click Start Session.

Note:  You can also save the focus session as a template to reuse in the future. Click Save as Template.

Filter Sessions

Filter sessions prevent students from accessing specific websites.

What you can do With Filter Session

• Enter up to 50 websites that learners are not allowed to access during the browsing session
• Establish how long the session will last
• Set up the session for the whole class, specific students, or groups
• Schedule a session ahead of time
• Save your session as a template or use a template you've already created

Why Filter Sessions Help Learning

Filter sessions work well when students are working on an open-ended activity and need to exercise good digital citizenship. If they aren’t quite ready to independently make choices about the content they consume online, you can set up a filter session. If you have digital citizenship conversations with your students, they may mention websites that distract them. You can also set up filter sessions to restrict these websites and keep students on track.

How to set up a Filter Session

1. Click the blue Guide Browsing button.

2. Select Set up a Filter Session.

3. Type the website links you want to prevent students from accessing.

4. Select the amount of time you want the session to last.

5. Select The Class, Student(s), or Group(s).

6. To schedule the session for later, toggle to Yes.

7. Then click Start Session.

Note: You can also save the filter session as a template to reuse in the future. Click Save as a Template.

Removing a URL from an Active Guided 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 a 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.

How Teachers can use this for Learning

• Remove an assessment website link when a learner, group, or the class is finished with an assessment.
• Some learners may struggle to focus right after lunch or another time of day. Create a guided browsing session for them. Then remove any links if they're ready for more browsing responsibility before the session is over.