How Appleton Area School District uses Hāpara for real-time learning visibility

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Customer Details

Location: Appleton and Grand Chute, Wisconsin

Number of students: Over 15,000

Age group: K-12

Tool they leverage: Hāpara Highlights

Year they adopted Hāpara: 2014

Featuring: Educators Bobbie Jo Sorenson and Jonathon Zabel

Appleton Area School District serves the communities of Appleton and Grand Chute, Wisconsin. Supporting over 15,000 learners, the district is the sixth largest in the state. It includes fifteen elementary schools, four middle schools, three high schools, thirteen recognized charter schools and one magnet school. The district prioritizes digital learning with Chromebooks, stating on their website, “Individual use of Chromebooks supports student empowerment to engage in their personalized learning before, during and after school as they prepare for postsecondary education and the modern workplace.”

In grades 5-12, students use Chromebooks during the school day and may also take the devices home to access digital learning resources. In grades PreK-4, students have assigned Chromebooks for the school day. With the use of 1:1 Chromebooks, Appleton Area School District integrates technology “to make learning more engaging, accessible and personal.” One of the ways they make this a priority is by using the Hāpara Highlights classroom management tool.  

High school social studies educator Bobbie Jo Sorenson and middle school math and geography educator Jonathon Zabel recently shared how Hāpara Highlights has impacted their teaching in meaningful ways.

Real-time visibility that drives accountability

One way Hāpara Highlights creates a more engaged digital classroom is by encouraging learners to be accountable. This classroom management tool provides educators with visibility into learners’ online browsing and digital learning progress. Educators can see screenshots of what learners are currently viewing in their web browser and a list of recent links they have visited.

At the beginning of the school year, Jonathon gives his learners a clear understanding of how the tool works. “I show them the teacher side and explain, ‘This is everything I can see. I can monitor your tabs and your exact screens.’ I show them the Activity Viewer, and then I show how I can take a snapshot, and even see the exact dates and times they’ve clicked on things,’” he explained. 

“Then I also show them that I can access everything in their Google Drive,” Jonathon said. He lets them know that he can do a quick search in Hāpara Highlights through the Drive button.

By setting these expectations early, Jonathon reduces distractions and ensures learners understand the importance of staying on task.

Bobbie Jo shared that using Hāpara Highlights in her classroom encourages transparency and keeps learners on task. “It gives a level of accountability to students. I oftentimes will put Highlights up on my interactive teacher screen. If we’re doing a test, I’ll have it up on the board,” she said. 

She is upfront with learners and that honesty helps build trust in her classroom. She says, “I’m not trying to sneak up on you. I’m not spying on you. I’m telling you I’m going to be on it. So if you’re doing things online, I will see it,” she says. 

Streamlined differentiation and personalized support

Bobbie Jo noted that one of her favorite parts of Hāpara Highlights is the ability to see learners’ progress in real time. She explained, “Sometimes a student isn’t typing an answer to a short question, and I’ll check to see if they’re stuck,” she said. 

This is especially valuable for students requiring additional support. “It’s great for students who have IEP accommodations because we can track if they’re staying on task,” she added.

The ability to organize students into groups in Highlights makes it even easier to tailor instruction to their unique needs.

By using the Groups feature, Jonathon can provide learners with personalized support and keep tabs on who is on track. 

“Sometimes, I’ll share different links to groups,” he noted. Jonathon does this with the “Share links” feature in Hāpara Highlights, which an educator can use to open links directly onto a learner’s Chromebook, a group’s devices or the entire class’s screens.

He continues, “One of the things that I also love is the function of being able to view different groups of students.” In Highlights, he can filter by group to quickly see that group’s progress.

A special education teacher may co-teach with him during a class period as well, and they use Hāpara Highlights to focus on a group of learners’ needs. Jonathon explains, “We’ll create groups to highlight a cluster of students we need to focus on. Because I can add those extra adults as teachers into the class, it makes it easier. They can just focus on the four or five kids they need to really hone in on.”

“I also use the groupings in Hāpara as my data management to see who has completed a task,” he said. He adds learners to class activity groups, and once they complete a task, he takes them out of the group.

“The kids with the group colors above their names, those are the ones I need to monitor and make sure they’re doing the right things,” Jonathon explains. 

One-on-one communication 

Hāpara Highlights also allows educators to send personalized messages to a learner as a reminder or to provide instructional support. Bobbie Jo said, “I definitely use the messaging feature. If a student is off task, I might send them a message instead of just closing their tab and write, ‘Hey, you should really be working on this right now.’”

She continued, “At our school, we also have a resource period called ‘flex time,’ and sometimes students sign up to be with me and sometimes they’re with another teacher. If they’re with another teacher, and I see that they’re watching a video or playing a game, I might just send them a message and say, ‘Remember you have this missing assignment that you could be doing.’ Last year I had a student who was skipping my class, but he would be on his Chromebook, and I would send him a reminder message.”

Teaching skills that matter

Hāpara also helps teach students about responsibility and professionalism in a digital environment. Appleton teachers use the tool to initiate discussions about appropriate technology use in school.

“Sometimes students will say, ‘That’s a violation of my privacy,’” Bobbie Jo shared. “I remind them that the school owns the Chromebooks and Wi-Fi. If they’re not doing something they shouldn’t be, it’s not an issue.” 

These digital citizenship conversations also involve differentiating between personal and professional digital behaviors, skills Bobbie Jo believes are essential for her learners’ futures.

Likewise, Jonathon emphasizes digital citizenship in his classroom by using himself as an example. “I tell my students, ‘This is not my Chromebook. This is the property of the school district, so anything I do in my email or my account, the school district has access to. It’s the same way I can monitor your activity.” 

By modeling strong digital habits himself, Jonathon helps learners prepare for professional expectations they’ll encounter in the workforce.

Empowering educators in the digital classroom

For educators like Bobbie Jo and Jonathon, Hāpara Highlights has proven to be much more than a tool for monitoring students. It equips them with features to create an engaged yet flexible classroom environment where students can thrive.

Jonathon emphasized, “It’s a very diverse and adaptable tool. It can be used in a lot of different ways, which is what I love.” 

By integrating tools like Hāpara Highlights, Appleton Area School District shows how technology can make a difference in the digital classroom. The district’s commitment to empowering educators with solutions like Hāpara, builds accountability, creates personalized learning opportunities and equips students with the skills they need to be prepared for the future.