Picture this: It’s almost the end of the school year, and you want to incorporate some fun, engaging activities into your lesson reviews! How about doing a Kahoot or Gimkit? You know your students would love the game function, and you can personalize the questions to make it a meaningful review. Everyone is excited, until you say the words, “Type ‘Kahoot.it’ into the address bar.”
“What?!?”
“How do I do that?”
“Mine isn’t working!”
“What do I type again?”
“It’s still not working!”
If you teach 1st grade like I do, asking the students to simply go to a website creates chaos and confusion. Imagine a world where you can make your desired website magically appear on all their screens instantly! With Hapara, your wish is granted!
Hapara offers a variety of benefits in a K-3 classroom. Here are just 3 areas that I have found this program to be especially helpful with my 1st and 2nd grade students.
Sharing a Website
As mentioned in the story above, sometimes you just need all of your students to be on the same page! Realistically, it takes the first few months of school for Primary students to even log in to their devices. Rather than running around to each Chromebook to type in a desired website for them, simply have the students logged into their device and you can instantly share whatever site you’d like them to explore.
Steps:
Monitoring Student Use
Steps:
- Open Hapara
- Select the current class you are teaching
- Click Share Link button
- Paste up to 10 links that you want to send
- Choose if it’s to go to the whole class or select students
- Click “Share Links”
Monitoring Student Use
You know how sometimes you wish you had eyes on the back of your head in class? Well, with Hapara, it's kind of like having that superpower! You can keep a close watch on what your students are up to on their Chromebooks, right from your own screen. You can even close unwanted tabs on their screen, or set up a Focus Session where students can only access certain sites you have approved.
Steps:
- Open Hapara
- Select the current class you are teaching
- Click Current Screens tab
- If you need everyone’s attention, select “pause screens” button and toggle to “on” position to pause all students screens , release by toggling to “off” again
- You can also click “Freeze tabs” which will ensure that they cannot open any new tabs, and can only access the ones that are currently open.
6. If you want to focus on one student’s screens: click on their tile.
7. f you want to close any unwanted screens that they have open, simply click on the “x” next to the browser title.
You can also set a Focus session under Guide Browsing where students can only access websites you pre-approved (select Set up Focus Session, type in websites you want students to be able to access, select if it’s for whole class or select students, click Start Session)
A Filter session is similar, but instead this option allows you to select websites your students are NOT allowed to access. For primary grades, I feel that the Focus session is often the most useful.
If you want to do these actions for only one student, simply select the three dots in the upper right corner of their tile, and a drop down menu will appear for that student only.
Recognize Students’ Great Work
When your students have progressed in their computer skills to the point where they may be completing a presentation in Google Slides or they have a picture that they are creating in Canva, you may want to share their work on your big screen. Getting your student to “cast” their screen can be tricky for younger students, but Hapara lets you pull up what they are working on right from your computer. In a couple clicks, you can quickly highlight multiple students who are doing stellar work! You can also easily send a private message to students while they are working that gives real time feedback and encouragement!
Steps:
- Open Hapara
- Select the current class you are teaching
- Click Current Screens tab
- Click on student’s tile
- open the assignment that they are working on
6. Display their page on your desktop monitor that shows on your big screen
7. Point out all the great things this student has done and celebrate their work!
*Remember, you can pause everyone else’s screens to make sure they are paying attention by using the steps mentioned in Tip #2!
If you want to send a message:
- Click on the Send Message button
- Select if it’s to be sent to the whole class or select students
- Type your message (add emojis if you’d like)
- Click Send Message
If your students struggle with navigating to websites, or if you have a student who is often off-task while using their computers, I would encourage you to give Hapara a try! It’s ready to go with your students’ accounts, actions can be applied to the whole group or personalized for students, and the magic of monitoring their screens from your own desk does feel like a superpower! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, or if you just want to share how you utilize this program in your own classroom!
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