Hapara Happenings . . .

If you have been using your chromebooks, I hope you have also benefitted from the use of Hapara to help you organize your students' Google Apps experience and the "Interact" feature to help you monitor student Internet use? If you have chromebooks and have not been using Hapara, please let me know if I can support you to effectively utilize this tool. If you have, you may be noticing some changes coming. With the introduction of Google Classroom, Hapara has definitely upped its game. Two features I want to discuss are Hapara Highlights, which we just began beta testing, and Hapara Workspace, an amazing new differentiation tool that allows you to create learning experiences for your students.

Hapara Interact allowed you to view the student browser tabs, close them if need by, and to get a look at the screen the student was currently using (with up to a 5-min lag, which could be overridden by refreshing the Interact screen). You were also able to send the students to a link, which opened a new tab on their chrome browser, and send the student, or the entire class a message. The new "Highlights" public beta test we are currently participating in allows us to test some awesome new features. The most exciting one for me (and you, I hope) is the ability to limit the browsing to sites or URLs that open in the student browser. You can limit them to only those pages for as little as 5 or as long as 50 minutes. You can do this for the entire class, groups, or individual students. I believe I can hear my Hapara power users screaming in excitement. Here is a quick glimpse of what it can look like. Please let me know how you like it!

Another very exciting feature is Hapara Workspace. Workspace allows you differentiate your instructional delivery using their new interface. This can be an individual assignment or an entire unit! The components are: Learning Objectives, Resources, Tasks, and Assessment Criteria. Teachers create the workspaces and the students will then have view access to their assigned workspace! Instead of trying to type a lengthy explanation, I have compiled a list of Hapara Workspace video tutorials and put in in the link section of this blog (upper-right sidebar). I have also scheduled a webinar/virtual PD from our Hapara rep, Allison Winston. It will occur on Monday, October 26, at 4pm. I scheduled it at 4pm so teachers could get home and watch the webinar from the comfort of their couch or favorite chair without any distraction.

Please let me know if you are interested in attending the webinar and I will check in with you the day of the event to remind you!

Be Awesome,

jeff