Hāpara Champion Educator - Dashboard Reflection

 Kia ora koutou, 

I am currently doing some online learning around the Hāpara Dashboard, a tool which we use in school daily. This is a free online course to help teachers and educators understand the basic tools and functions of Hāpara better, in order to support student success and engagement. 

The purpose of this task was to share our thoughts and reflect on the material we have read, watched and explored about using the Hāpara Dashboard. Our questions are in bold and my answers to the reflection will follow. 

How might the visibility that the Dashboard tab provides help encourage both teachers and/or students with: (1) Developing organizational skills; (2) Promoting positive interactions between teachers and students; and (3) Creating an overall better learning environment for students? Please include at least three points and/or examples in your response. 

The Dashboard is one of the features I utilise the most when collecting data for formative and summative assessment of learning. At our school, students have a ton of Hapara folders, we do not do a great job of streamlining this for our learners (the IT department sets up their accounts for the full school year, thus, children taking English Term 1-4 have 4 identical folders for English). It can be confusing for students, and teachers, to ensure that work is easily accessible and visible. 

To help learners develop their organisational skills I set out classroom expectations that work I am marking or assessing needs to be in the correct folder. We usually go through in their Google drive and re-name or highlight in a color, the folder I will be accessing. I then only have this folder saved on my Hapara favourites on the dashboard. This allows me to organise any files I am sharing out through Hapara to end up in the correct folder, making sure I am not confusing my students by sharing to a folder that isn’t being used. On their end, they develop their organisational skills by making sure work is in the folder I am viewing. I show them what the folders look like on my dashboard and how I can see the documents they have in them. We also talk about appropriate names for the file so that I know what work I am viewing when going in to mark an assignment. Like the examples above in Dashboard photo, most have clear names. I would discourage the use of a generic title such as “New Presentation” as that might make me wonder what work it is, instead of easily identifying it as “Leaders of WWII” work. My students are responsible to organise their files with an appropriate title as well as in the correct folder. If not, they might find their work is the last to be marked and given feedback if I need to go and hunt for it through Hapara Sharing. 

Using the Dashboard allows great opportunities for positive interactions between teachers and students. It is quick and easy for me to see which students are accessing the work and when by seeing the time stamp on the Updated column or who has been on the document with Modified by. This allows me to note down who is accessing work at the right time, who is potentially doing extra work on their own time or for homework, and which students may need support in navigating the work if they are not accessing it at all. This gives me the chance to provide praise in a number of ways, via commenting on the file, sending an email to the child or verbally giving them a congratulations for their great work. On the flipside for students who are not accessing the work, or accessing classwork for another class at the wrong time, I can have evidence of this to have those follow up conversations. The way the documents are displayed in order of when they were accessed shows me clearly what the child is working on and we can then discuss if there are any barriers to the task that has been set. 

I find that using the Dashboard and having access to everything all in one place helps me to be a better teacher which provides an overall better learning experience for them in the digital environment. Being able to find and locate files for my entire class in one space, alleviates stress and time for my workload, in turn, allowing me to mark, grade and give feedback to my students in a timely manner. As we are a blogging school, having student blogs available via the Dashboard is instrumental in my daily practice. This allows me to monitor students posts and comments, to provide feedback, as well as check that work is published. We do mini competitions between my Year 7 and Year 8 students, where as we finish up a post, and they are asked to publish, I can live monitor who is published. The winning year level gets a small reward. This adds some fun to an otherwise more mundane learning experience (publishing their work!) There are so many great features that allow me to be more organised at the benefit of my learners and the ability to monitor and keep them safe online which allows them to feel safe navigating the internet for their learning. 

The Sharing tab allows you to see: (1) Unshared docs; (2) Docs that have been made public; (3) Docs shared from outside of your school domain; (4) All Docs; (5) and deleted Docs. 

What is at least one benefit of having visibility into each one of the five different areas referred to above? 

I have found having access to the Sharing tab helpful for teaching as well as pastoral care. As stated in my previous reflections, I make it abundantly clear to my learners that their teachers can access all parts of their Google Suit (email, Drive etc.) with the intention to keep them safe, however, it is also helpful for us on the pastoral side to support them if they are choosing to use their school account for things which are not school related. 

Unshared: This is most helpful for me when trying to find work that is not in the correct folder! I find that there is a huge amount of work here for many of my students. It is good to see as well, how much student work is not always organised or filed away. This allows me to discuss with the student the importance of organising their work into the correct folders and having a teachable moment, while then being able to access the work I need. 

Public: This is integral in keeping students safe. As we are a 1:1 device school, all our teachers and students have school owned accounts. In general, this would be an area where I should not see too many files, and if so, would be a red flag for me to check what the file is, who it is shared with and why. In the past, this is where I have found students unsafely using their school account to talk to people who are not in our school domain, which can be harmful or unsafe. We have had a few minor incidences with unsafe usage here, and having access to these files was integral for me to follow up the situation appropriately with learners and parents/caregivers, with clear evidence. 

External: similar to Public, this is a good way to find any red flags in regards to students sharing with people outside our domain. Usually files here are ones we share in our Learning Cluster, such as our Schoolwide blogging list. This also shows me who is accessing these documents to successfully make comments on the blogs of other learners as part of our weekly practice. 

All Docs: I like to use this to see what work students are accessing. As I am not their only teacher, though I am their “Home Room” teacher, it is important for me to see and check in that they are completing tasks for their other classes and at the right times. I would be the first point of contact for any concerns about learning or behaviour for my class, so this gives me a great data set to see which work is being accessed and/or completed, particularly in classes which I do not teach and may not have access to on my Hapara Classes. This also allows me to see all the files and the time they have been accessed which is helpful when we are doing online learning - this was integral when we were teaching digitally during our COVID lockdown in 2020 so I was able to communicate home to parents and caregivers. 

Deleted: This is another section where I have found some red flags, with students using their account to create worrisome docs. In the past, unfortunately, I have found suicide notes, a document being shared by students to start and record rumours as well as ‘chats’ that students use in class. The teachable moment here is to remind students that what goes online and is ‘deleted’ is never really deleted. While this is a safe space, and I will do my best to support their pastoral needs depending on what they are going through, it’s a good reminder that something similar posted to social media is far more public than their teachers viewing it, so perhaps we can put in place supports around being a safe digital citizen and again, discussing what is okay and not okay for the online space. This again, allows me to support my students in their personal needs, though it can be a difficult conversation to have when students are shocked and surprised when the document is brought to their attention again as they assumed it was deleted and not able to be accessed. This is a huge one for me to help keep my students safe on and offline. 

The Gmail tab provides access to three different sub-menus: Inbox, Sent, and Trash. Clicking any of these sub-menus provides you with visibility into these folders. 

How might having visibility into each Gmail folder support student learning and promote digital citizenship?

It is integral that our 21st century learners understand the importance as well as the etiquette that go along with having access to an email. This is a skill they will need in their personal as well as professional futures regardless of which path they choose to follow. Helping students navigate their Gmail as a learning tool can help promote safe digital practices and allow students to become confident digital citizens under the watch and care of their teacher. 

Inbox - this is a great way to see who is accessing their email! I love how simple it is to see opened (unbolded) versus unopened (bold) emails. Encouraging students to open, read, respond or clear their unwanted emails needs to be taught. If a student has a majority of unopened emails, it tells me perhaps they are not yet self managing their email. This could allow the opportunity to sit down with them and show them how to do this, perhaps they are unsure, or support them in finding the correct email I need them to open for a particular reason, maybe they have been overwhelmed with so many unopened emails. This also allows me to see who is getting emails from others, such as different members of staff, perhaps students talking to students (ideally learning focussed), or those who have made a poor choice in subscribing to newsletters, social media etc. Taking the time for a learning conversation, reminding and reviewing the expectations to check their emails and take any next steps will promote students to be good digital citizens independently. 

Sent - monitoring how a student is responding to their emails is important when teaching etiquette, it’s also good to see who a student is responding to and why. For example, a student replying to an email to a teacher to say: “okay thanks!” when given feedback is good, as the student has taken time to read and respond, however, more could be desired from the format of the response. If a student has 0 sent emails, we may need to take a moment to review the importance of a response, especially for emails that require one. I did this during our COVID lockdown when teaching remotely. I would send an update email then ask the children to respond with a silly joke or emoji, to show me that they had read the entire email and instructions. This was a bit of fun during a stressful time, but also allowed me to briefly check in with those who I have seen read their emails. 

Trash - a great way to see that students are filtering their emails. When an email is resolved, responded to or doesn’t need a response, it should end up in the trash so we don’t have hundreds of emails in our inbox. I have also found some students who get ‘clicker happy’ and immediately delete emails without reading them. It’s clear to see under this feature as unread emails are still bolded. Similar to deleted or ‘unshared’ documents in my previous response, I have historically found some red flag emails which students have deleted, yet may need to be addressed. It is a good reminder to students each term that the school owns their email to keep them safe and it is important they are aware that teachers and administrators have access to their emails to keep them safe and foster student’s abilities to make safe choices online. 

4) If you have any additional thoughts about Teacher Dashboard that you did not have the opportunity to share, please do so here. We love to hear how you are using Teacher Dashboard and about the impact it has had in your classroom!

I love the Dashboard! My favourite part is being able to access all my student’s blogs quickly and easily, particularly when it comes to publishing time.