Back to school with Hāpara: Updates, tips and more!

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Hipi the Sheepicorn and Team Hāpara welcome you back to school, our favorite time of year! In case you missed it, Logan Duncan and Lindsay Dixon Garcia recently shared all of the exciting updates we’ve added to Hāpara. These include updates to our classroom management tool and our new digital hall pass. Check out our webinar to see what’s new with Hāpara or read on to get a rundown of our updates!

A quick recap of Hāpara updates from the past year

Before we dig into our brand-new updates, we wanted to take you through a quick recap of all the Hipi-rific features we’ve added to Hāpara Classroom Management. If you missed any of these over the past few months, you’ll want to check them out this school year. They’re all designed to make teaching workflows easier and make screen time meaningful for students on devices. 

Record student browsing

First up is a feature that schools have been absolutely loving, especially as a way to show that students are focused on learning during screen time. Teachers now have the ability to record student browsing. If it’s been enabled in the Hāpara Admin Console, teachers will see a record button and be able to record student browsing for a set period of time.

Two-way chat

Another update from the past year is our two-way chat feature, one of our most requested features. Our product team listened to your feedback, and it’s now available for your school to enable in the Hāpara Admin Console. 

This feature allows teachers to have conversations with their learners one on one. There’s no interruption to the whole class if a teacher needs to check in with a learner or remind them to get back on track. If the teacher has Chat turned to “on,” learners can message the teacher directly as well. 

Teacher screen sharing

Remember when school projectors hooked up to teachers’ computers? There’s now a much easier way for teachers to display what’s on their screen! Using Hāpara, teachers can share their screens directly with learners. They can pick a tab in their browser or their full window and present it directly on their learners’ screens. This is a great way to model concepts and break down steps for the class. Check out our admin FAQ to learn more about how it works.

Microsoft Edge integration

Hāpara now works alongside both Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge! If your school has classrooms that use Microsoft Edge, like a CTE computer lab, you can now make sure screen time is focused on learning. If you have questions, check out our article about how compatibility with Edge works. Or please reach out to our Support Team to get set up.

Our newest product: Hāpara Hall Pass

Our biggest release at the end of the last school year was Hāpara Hall Pass, our newest product (Hipi is jumping over rainbows for this one). Instead of a big wooden block, a clipboard, paper agenda passes, or another physical hall pass (likely covered with germs), you can now adopt a fully digital solution. Hall Pass has been a big project in this last year, and through every step, we had admins and teachers involved giving feedback. Our goal was to make it simple to understand, set up and use.

How it works in Hāpara

• Tech admins, principals or other school leaders set up the hall passes in the system
• They can add different time limits and include pass limits for students
• Teachers or other staff members can create a pass for students with a timer on it
• Students can request a hall pass in Hāpara Student Dashboard
• Teachers can approve or deny a pass with just a couple clicks

Give teachers and school leaders visibility into student movement

Hall Pass gives staff direct visibility into where students are going, how long they’ve been out of class and when. School leaders are able to see the types of passes that students are requesting the most across the school and hot spot locations. They get a whole history of analytics to track the times and days that students are spending outside of class and see patterns and trends. 

Teachers, too, can see useful analytics for their class. Maybe a student needs extra help or maybe they’re struggling in class. It gives them some data to say, “Why are they leaving frequently? How can we fix this problem?”

Back-to-school Hāpara Hall Pass updates 

Now for some updates that Hipi thinks deserve an extra sprinkle of marshmallows! If you have Hall Pass now, you’ll see these extra features as you head back to school.

Encounter Prevention

If there are students who shouldn’t be out in the hallway at the same time, you can pair them up in the Hāpara Admin Console and prevent those students from being able to request passes at the same point in time. 

You might use this to prioritize safety if there’s a bullying situation to prevent students from being in the hall together. Or maybe there are students who get up to shenanigans together and should not be out of class at the same time. 

Kiosk Mode

Hall Pass now includes Kiosk Mode. For example, if your students do not have 1:1 devices, you can set up a kiosk within a classroom and students can request a hall pass there. Or you can set up a kiosk in a location like the front office, where students can grab a late pass. You can also mark certain passes to auto-approve so that teachers can keep on teaching without any interruptions.

Pause Passes

Another recent update in Hall Pass is Pause Passes, which is available to tech admins and school leaders. There are a few different reasons you may want to use Pause Passes. For instance, maybe you have an assembly and don’t want to open the ability for students to request passes. Or in an emergency you may need to pause all passes across the school campus. 

This feature will stop anyone from requesting a pass, and no one can click on pending passes to approve. The only ability a staff member will have is to end a pass. Most importantly, it will tell you which students are still out with an active pass.

Favorites

This new feature was a popular request from the teachers who have been using Hall Pass. Teachers can now set “favorite” passes and search for passes to save time. 

Configure for your building

If Hall Pass has been enabled for a school, a principal or other building leader can jump in and configure hall passes for their campus. It’s the school principals, the assistant principals and other school admins that really create and enforce all the processes and procedures that happen on a school campus from day to day. This update takes a load off the district tech admin and gives school leaders more control over their school site’s hall pass setup.

If you’d like to bring Hall Pass to your school or district, please reach out to your Hāpara Account Manager or sign up here for a walkthrough.

How to train your teaching staff for a successful year

We want to make sure all of our schools are set up for success with training, and we offer different ways to get your staff ready and confident for the new school year. We have three pathways: 

• Self-service Learning Bytes program: Teachers get a micro digital badge for each short product course and really learn how to deeply use the products on their own time. Sign up here.
• Virtual training: Webinar training led by a Hāpara expert, customized to meet the needs of your teachers. Ask your account manager about virtual training or sign up here.
• Back-to-school webinars: See a live digital lesson using Hāpara to keep it on track, learn proactive strategies for reducing disruptions and get some tips about making sure digital learning time is meaningful. Watch them here.

Your feedback makes a difference

If you’ve been using Hāpara and have some comments, enhancements you’d like to see, or suggestions on how it could be more useful for you, please share your feedback. The product team does review all feedback and uses it to plan what we’re building next. So please click on the feedback tool when you sign in to Hāpara and send us your thoughts.

Hipi and Team Hāpara wish you the best school year yet!