Creating and Applying Scenes

Scenes are designed to give teachers added control over students' web activity during classroom sessions. Scenes can either be a Blocked Websites List (where all websites are allowed except the websites on your list) or an Allowed Websites List, where all websites are blocked except the sites added to your list. The instructions below explain how to create a Scene and how to apply a Scene to your active sessions. For more details about Scenes, please see Components of a Scene.

If you would like to view the video version of this article, you can view it here.

Create a New Scene

Start by clicking the Scenes tab in the left column. This will bring you to the main Scenes page; where you can choose to create an Allowed Websites List or a Blocked Websites List.

Once you've clicked the Create List button for the desired type of list, you can start customizing it. For this article, let's try creating a Blocked Websites List by clicking the Create List button found on the Block Websites List panel.

Once Create List is clicked, you'll be able to name your Scene, add a Description (optional), and choose the Icon Color (also optional. If no icon color is chosen, the icon color will be Niagara blue-green by default). Click Next to move on. 

From this page, you can add the website URLs or Wildcard (URLs or terms) to be blocked. You can also add Quick Lists (found on the right by selecting the list to add, and then clicking the Add Lists button at the bottom right). Once all sites have been added, click the Save button (at the top-right) to save your Scene.

Your Scene will now appear under the panel that corresponds to the type of list created (in this case, we created a Blocked Websites List, so the Scene appears under the Blocked Websites List panel). From here, you can also sort your list of Scenes by the Recently Used, A-Z, Z-A, or Last Modified.

If you need to make any adjustments to your Scene (such as adding or removing sites, setting Auto-Open tabs, setting a tab limit, or renaming, duplicating, or deleting your Scene, you can do so by clicking the gear icon next to the Scene that needs to be edited. Then, you can select the desired option from the dropdown list. Let's click Edit to take a look at the options to Auto-Open tabs and set a tab limit.

Once you've clicked Edit, you'll be brought back to the Edit page; where you initially set your Scene name and added sites. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you'll find the Tab Management options.  

Note: If you want to set a tab limit and your students will need to click links that open up a new tab, be sure to keep that in mind when determining the number of tabs needed (Ex. If your tab limit is set to 2, and your student already has two tabs open, clicking on a link that opens a new tab will not work since opening the next tab would exceed the two-tab limit that you have set). The same rule applies to auto-open tabs. Once the tab limit is reached, no new tabs can be opened until a previous tab is closed or the tab limit is increased.

Once all desired changes have been added, scroll to the top of the page and click the Save button to save all settings for your Scene.

Applying a Scene

If you would like to manually select the Scene to be applied before starting your session, click the Classrooms tab in the panel on the right and select the classroom to apply your Scene to.

Scenes can also be applied to active Teacher sessions or set as the Default Scene to apply any time a new session is started.

Applying Scenes in Active Sessions

1. Click on the "Scene Status: " button at the top of your active session. When hovering over this button, the text will change to "Change Scene"
2. Select the Scene you wish to apply. The "Scene Status: " button will change to include the name of your Scene. If no Scene is applied, the text will display "Scene Status: No Scene"

Setting a Default Scene to Always Apply at the Start of a Session

1. From your Teacher Dashboard, find the classroom that you wish to have a Default Scene applied and click Settings. 
2. Under the Info tab, find the Default Scene drop-down menu and select a Scene
3. Click Update Classroom to save your changes

Note: If you have Scheduled Sessions configured with Default Scenes, we suggest removing the Default Scene and archiving your classroom at the end of the school year or semester to avoid students being unintentionally blocked after the class has completed.