September 2026 Product Updates

As learners get back into the swing of things and further into the new school year, they will inevitably find ways to distract themselves during digital learning time. With so many “shiny objects” on the internet, it’s only logical that students will wander off task. That’s why Hipi and the Hāpara Team have introduced some new features to Hāpara Classroom Management just in time for back-to-school.

Split Screens 

Educator feedback is our most valuable source of information at Hāpara, and we’ve received a lot of requests for a way to detect when students are using Split View in Google Chrome. There is commentary from educators about it all over the internet, and it’s caused teachers a lot of headaches. 

Students use Split View in Google Chrome to evade detection from classroom monitoring software. For example, students will open their classwork on the left and a YouTube video on the right. Teachers can only see what students are doing on the classwork tab, not the tab with the YouTube video playing. So teachers are none the wiser and think that learners are on task. Worst of all, IT administrators cannot disable this feature for students. 

Starting this month, Hāpara is the first classroom management provider to introduce a way for teachers to detect Chrome Split View on student devices. When a student splits their screen, an icon (pictured below) will appear in the student’s tile on the teacher’s dashboard. So if it looks like that student is having too much fun solving that math problem and the teacher doesn’t want to disrupt other learners in the room, they can simply take a peek at their dashboard to see what’s going on and close the tab if necessary.

Audio Detection 

An educator recently shared with us that students were putting video or audio files into Google Docs or playing audio on sites that didn’t look like audio sites. They wanted a way to alert the teacher that students might be off task or listening to unapproved audio. 

Now, a speaker icon will appear on the student’s tile when their device is playing audio. If this happens during a time that the teacher hasn’t allowed students to listen to something, or it’s not part of a planned activity, then this alert lets the teacher know it’s something to investigate further. The teacher can then close the student’s tab where the audio is playing, or they can send the student a direct message reminding them what they are supposed to be focused on. It’s a great way for teachers to know quickly that something is amiss.

Multiple Windows 

In many classroom management solutions, teachers cannot detect when students have multiple Chrome windows open; they can only see one window. This makes it easy for students to open an on-task window with educational content, and then another to play games, for example. 

Hāpara just rolled out a way for teachers to detect when students have multiple windows open and see what they are doing in those windows, giving teachers much more visibility into student browsing activity.

Hall Pass

In addition to Google accounts, Microsoft accounts are now supported in Hāpara Hall Pass. Cue the confetti! Now Microsoft schools can reclaim instructional time and better supervise students in hallways with a digital hall pass solution. 

Additionally, there is now a display for teachers and staff showing how many passes are currently active in the school. It gives teachers and staff a quick way to check from their dashboard if there are passes available at the moment.