Noisy Monitoring

Classroom Noise Monitor Apps to Help Calm the Class and You!

A room full of quiet students … for some teachers, that’s the perfect classroom. For others there's a time and place for students to be using a quiet voice.   There are thankfully lots of classroom noise monitor apps that are out there to help you manage the level of noise in your classroom. These are a few that create a clear visual for students to understand just how loud or quiet they are being and could work well as a clear barometer for whole class rewards.

Bouncy Balls
Bounce balls works with your device's built-in microphone! This is a fun and visual way to help manage classroom noise by creating a clear visual for students to observe. You can adjust the sensitivity level of your computer microphone and even change the total number of balls onscreen with a max of 200 balls. There are different ball themes to pick from, such as: plastic, emoji, bubbles, or eyeballs. When the classroom noise level gets louder and the balls jump high in the air, a warning, that can be turned off, will appear across the screen telling students to settle down.
Pros:
It's Free, it creates a clear visual that even younger kids can understand. It is easy to use.
Cons:
The balls are constantly jittering onscreen, this can be more distracting than helpful while you’re trying to teach. The silly nature adds some excitement to the classroom hopefully the novelty of seeing the balls tossing up and down will wear off after a few uses.

Too Noisy
Too Noisy offers both a free browser tool and mobile apps for $4. In this one, an arrow spins left and right on a dial, similar to a speed meter in a car.  When classroom volume is low, the arrow stays in the green and yellow range. But when students get louder, the arrow spikes into oranges and reds, warning students that they’ve hit the max. In addition behind the meter is a blue sky with clouds and a happy emoji. When students start to get loud, the sky turns orange, the clouds gray, and the emoji frowns. When the max is reached, the whole sky is dark gray and black, and the emoji becomes a crying face.
Pros:
There is a free version. This tool is not very distracting. The shifting colors and changing emojis are a good/clear visual cue that encourages students to stay in an acceptable range.
Cons:
The free version requires teachers to register first, which has several steps and screens and is bogged down by video messages that seem excessive given the simplicity of the tool. The cartoonish nature of the app may also seem “babyish” for some students.

Calmness Counter
Calmness Counter has an arrow and a gauge that shows when sounds are too loud. The arrow starts off in green, but moves to yellow and then red when the noise is too loud.
Pros:
It is free. You can adjust the sensitivity of the microphone which makes it fairly simple to use.
Cons:
With this website, you must turn off webcams and speakers and only have the microphone on. When I have tested the site I find it doesn't scroll properly nor did the arrows work to scroll, when I managed to get a scroll bar to appear and could grab and drag it to scroll down.

Zero Noise Classroom
Zero Noise Classroom is a Chrome Extension. This app allows you to show noise level and stopwatch at the same time. It advertises itself to be a tool for the collaborative classroom.
Pros:
It is free. You can set the timer for the amount of time you desire and you can adjust the sound sensitivity. Great quick and easy tool for quiet activities.

Cons:

It only works in the Chrome Browser. Might not be ideal below 2nd or 3rd grade.