Stop Saying “Shhh” — Let Them See It
Noise creep is invisible to the people making it. A noise meter on the projector externalizes the problem: the class watches their own volume as a traffic light, and quieting down becomes a game of keeping the circle green instead of a confrontation with the teacher. Set the thresholds once for the activity — silent reading, partner talk, group work — and let the light do the reminding.
Private by Construction
A tool that listens to a classroom must be boring about privacy, so this one is: the audio stream is reduced to a single loudness number dozens of times per second inside your browser and immediately discarded. No recording, no storage, no upload, no account — and the microphone indicator in your browser tab shows exactly when it is active. Press Stop or close the tab and it is released.
Threshold Recipes That Work
- Silent work / test: green to 25, red from 55, sensitivity 6 — even whispers show as amber.
- Partner talk: green to 40, red from 75 — conversation lives comfortably in amber.
- Group projects: green to 50, red from 85, alert buzz on — only genuine chaos trips the light.
Pair it with the classroom timer for timed quiet blocks, the classroom traffic light for a manual behaviour signal you control, or the scoreboard to award table points for every five minutes the class keeps out of the red.
