What monitoring can and can’t do

True of every option

• Nothing outside the browser. Phones, other computers, paper notes, other people, and apps outside Chrome are out of reach.
• No camera, microphone, or screenshots. None of these tools uses them or records the screen.
• No clipboard contents. Copy and paste can be noted or turned off; what was copied is never recorded.
• Never a grade. Observations are never used to calculate a score.
• Another browser is another world. A student who opens the same activity in a different browser, profile, or private window is outside what any of these tools watches.

Assessments & Feedback: classroom monitoring

Classroom monitoring is an option in each session’s settings. It observes and never blocks.

It notes

• When the assessment tab is hidden: another tab, a minimized window, or a locked screen.
• When a student leaves full screen.
• Copy, cut, and paste in the assessment, and time spent on each question.

It does not

• Notice another window placed over or beside an assessment tab that is still showing. Only a hidden tab is noted.
• Stop anything. Leaving the tab, leaving full screen, and pasting all still work.

Assessments & Feedback: web secure mode

Web secure mode runs in the student’s ordinary browser, with no installation.

It adds

• A setup check before questions load: full screen, the window in focus, and one display when you require it.
• The attention ladder. When attention leaves the assessment, a grace period and a warning come first. After that the attempt locks: a cover hides the questions, the clock pauses, and new answers wait until you or your unlock code let the student continue.
• A clipboard block, when you turn it on.
• Friction against a second tab or device opening the same attempt.

It cannot

• Keep a student in full screen. Browsers always let people leave; secure mode notices and responds.
• See or pause browser extensions, including ones that read the page or answer questions.
• Detect developer tools, block screenshots, or block screen sharing.
• Tell a notification, an accessibility tool, or a system popup from a deliberate switch. All of them move attention the same way.
• Guarantee one device. The second-device check lives in the browser tab, and a determined student can get around it.

Assessments & Feedback with the extension (extension mode)

Extension mode pairs an assessment with the Supervised Class Sessions extension, shown as “Web secure + Supervised Class Sessions extension” in session settings. It needs Chrome with the extension installed.

It adds

• Regular check-ins from the extension, needed to start and to keep going. Missed check-ins pause the clock.
• Off-list sites blocked in the assessment tab, and new tabs closed.
• Other extensions paused for the attempt, except known accessibility tools and ones your school’s policy installs.
• The extension’s observations saved to your record for the attempt.

It cannot

• Show that the extension itself is running unmodified. A check-in shows that something holding this attempt’s key answered. The assessment page receives that key, so a student with developer tools could answer check-ins without the extension.
• Pause extensions that your school’s policy installs, or stop a student from turning a paused one back on. Turning one back on is noted.

Supervised Class Sessions on its own

On its own, the extension runs Quick check, Exam, and Focus sessions for any website you choose. Nothing is sent to you during the session.

It can

• Keep an exam on its allowed sites and note attempts to leave. Quick check notes leaving without blocking it.
• Require full screen and note when attention leaves the activity.
• Pause other extensions for an exam and restore them afterward, and mute website notifications for a focus session.
• End the session at a time limit.

It cannot

• Show you anything live. There is no dashboard; you see a report only when a student shares it.
• Mute notifications where a school policy manages that setting, or quiet apps and phones.
• Keep enforcing after Chrome restarts. A restart ends the session’s restrictions; the record notes that the browser closed unexpectedly.

What a report can tell you

• Names are typed by students. The name on a report is whatever the student entered when they joined. Nothing checks it against an account. Verify can compare names with a class list you paste, but a match only means the typed names match.
• The check code catches casual edits, not determined ones. The key behind the code travels in the session’s join code, so every student in the session has it, and a student could rebuild an edited report that still passes. A pass shows the report is internally consistent, not who made it or what happened off-screen.
• One browser, one record per session. If two students join the same session in the same browser, both sittings land in one report, and it lists every name that was entered.
• Verify points out what is worth asking about: the same report pasted twice, one name on two reports, and a report with more than one name. None of these is a finding about a student.
• Reports stay on the student’s device until the student copies or downloads one and hands it in.

Reading what you see fairly

• Each signal is an observation to ask about, not a verdict. A notification, an input tool, a ChromeOS gesture, or a dropped connection can each produce one.
• No signal is not proof of anything either. A gap in the record means the tool saw nothing, not that nothing happened.
• Start with the plain-language summary, and treat counts as context, never as a score.

For how monitoring data is kept and deleted, see the privacy policy.