Your Hāpara 2023-2024 back-to-school guide

Listen to an audio version of this post:

Could it be that time of year already? Indeed it’s almost time for a new school year, a new group of learners and a chance for a fresh beginning. We want to make the back-to-school season as smooth as possible for you, whether you’re a teacher, a professional development leader or a technology admin. Check out these Hāpara tips for the best start to the school year!

Set up Highlights to mirror your classroom

In Highlights, you can sort your learners by alphabetical order. But did you know that you can also drag and drop the Student Tiles in any order you’d like? 

You may want to order them to match your seating chart. Or you may want to place certain Student Tiles at the top so you can provide more support day-to-day to those learners. 

Begin building positive relationships with learners

The first few weeks of the school year are crucial for classroom management. One way to start building classroom relationships with your learners is to use the Message feature in Highlights. Choose to send an instant message with a positive note to an individual learner, a group or the entire class. Some ideas include:

• Checking in about how they’re feeling
• A message about a positive digital citizenship choice
• A note about improvement on a skill
• A sentence with an emoji about why you’re thankful they’re in your class this year
• An offer to help with an activity online 

Start giving feedback on activities  

You may have some amazing lesson plans ready to go, but if learners make errors along the way and don’t receive feedback, they can’t improve. Specific feedback explaining an error with steps on how to improve helps learners truly progress. 

Researcher and author John Hattie also explained,

“Kids welcome feedback much more if it’s done privately than they do if it’s done publicly.” 

You can easily provide that kind of meaningful feedback directly to learners in Teacher Dashboard and Highlights — without calling them out in class. 

Or view learners’ real-time browsing and send a message to a learner with specific feedback. Both tools make it simple to monitor learning, see who’s on the right track and quickly discover who needs more support.

Get learners on board with digital citizenship

Highlights offers so much more than just closing learners’ browsing tabs. We believe in ethical monitoring and developing your learners’ digital citizenship skills. Transition your learners into responsible digital citizens using Highlights to:

• Provide guided browsing for the class, groups or individual learners
• Give digital citizenship feedback in the moment with the Message feature or Snaps
• Provide a reason if you do close a learner’s tab so they can improve

The more you use Highlights for digital citizenship instruction, the more you’ll see learners make good choices online. We also recommend that you be transparent with learners about how you’ll use Highlights to support them.

You can also engage in digital citizenship conversations with our Hāpara Card Talks. Grab a card and start a dialogue with learners to get them thinking about how they use the internet and devices. 

Unblock websites yourself in Deledao ActiveScan, presented by Hāpara

If your school has Deledao ActiveScan, presented by Hāpara, and your tech department has allowed this setting, you can unblock certain websites yourself. If a student finds a blocked website suitable for learning, they can send you an unblock request with a quick explanation. Check it out, and then approve it or deny it. 

If you decide to deny it, include a reason (choose from the ones already listed or add your own). With that clear feedback, the student will understand why the website is not a positive digital citizenship choice.

Key teachers into Hāpara Learning Bytes

We all know that educators don’t have a lot of time but may want to take a deeper dive into Hāpara. That’s why we now offer Hāpara Learning Bytes. These are micro-badging courses that only take one hour or less to finish. 

We offer micro-badging courses on:

• Highlights
• Teacher Dashboard
• Workspace
• Student Dashboard

⭐ Educators can register here: https://hapara.com/micro-badging/

Develop Hāpara experts at your school site 

For educators at your school or in your district who are ready to step up as Hāpara experts, we offer our Hāpara Champion courses. These online courses are asynchronous, so educators can work on them at their own pace. There is instructor support every step of the way for questions or help, too. It only takes about an hour a day to finish a course. 

We’re excited to now also offer a path for educators to earn graduate credit for the Hāpara Champion courses. Graduate credit is earned through Ashland University and is a great way for educators to work toward a degree or administrator credentials.

⭐ Educators can register for Champion courses here: https://hapara.com/get-certified/

⭐ Educators can sign up to earn graduate credit here: Ashland University program

Use Workspace for professional development

Have you used Workspace for PD before? That’s right — Workspace is for learners and staff members! Kristin Basaraba’s Hipi-Palooza presentation is all about using Workspace for professional learning. Her session explores ways to engage adult learners and their colleagues in PD. 

⭐ Check out Kristin’s session: https://hapara.com/hipipalooza/

The Discover tab in Workspace also has a lot of professional learning Workspaces that are ready to go (and easy for you to modify). Here are a few to get you started:

• Digital citizenship
• Assessment best practices
• Performance-based assessment
• Integrating problem-based learning into lesson planning

Review the new Google guidelines and data protection measures

Google recently announced new guidelines and data protection measures that affect how you manage which third-party apps users can access with their Google Workspace for Education account. As part of these changes, Google now requires all administrators to review and confirm access settings for third-party apps. 

You’ll need to add Hāpara’s Marketplace App to your trusted list. If you didn’t get an email with the steps on how to do this, reach out to us.

Load your data

It’s data loading time, but we’re here to help in any way you need. For quick access to the steps, we have support articles ready for you.

• Data loading FAQ
• Manual loading
• How to sync your data using SIS integrations
• How to enable Google Classroom sync

Set up Deledao ActiveScan, presented by Hāpara

Ready to set up our K-12 web filter? We have new videos to show you exactly what to do. The videos cover:

• Configuration
• Policy manager
• Chromebook deployment
• Dashboard and reports
• Student Wellness add-on
• Teacher Portal add-on
• Parent Portal add-on

⭐ Start watching: Web filter setup videos

Consider teacher instruction during your Hāpara Admin Console setup

You’ll want to set up Hāpara with instruction in mind. If you’re not sure what to consider during your Hāpara Admin Console setup, we’ve got you covered. 

⭐ Check out the tips: Admin Console instructional considerations

Support teachers

There are a few ways you can support teachers when they have a Hāpara question, need some ideas or want to get in touch with our Support Team. 

⭐ Check out our tips: Supporting your teachers

⭐ Teachers can join the Hāpara Community here: https://community.hapara.com

⭐ Teachers can search for help topics or start a support ticket here: Hāpara Support

We hope you have a wonderful start to the school year! Remember, we are always here to support you. Thank you for being a valued part of our community.