Ah, yes, another iPad app review, but this one is actually useful.
I am on the constant lookout for an app that will let me document children’s work and behavior, but it eludes me. On Tuesday I came across a list of apps for the classroom and this one looked interesting enough to try. It’s called Too Noisy. It uses the iPad’s microphone to evaluate the volume in a room, and if it’s in the (adjustable) acceptable range for a certain number of minutes (1-15) – Ding! You earn a gold star!
Earn 10 gold stars: a little fanfare plays and you earn a giant, twinkling star!
I went ahead and paid the $2.99 for the pro version of the app. It was well worth it.
You can pick different backgrounds, different sound meter styles, and adjust the time and alarms. “Alarms?” you say? Let me explain.
If the room gets noisier than it should, the meter goes up and the background changes. The sun looks alarmed, the dog looks frightened and the sunny day starts to rain, etc.:
Mr. Snowman loves a reasonably quiet room,
but spike the needle? An alarm sound of your choosing (and you can even record your own) goes off and the screen ‘cracks’:
We only used the sunshine screen today. I don’t have a plan for extra rewards for getting gold stars -the stars were their own reward for my guys. I also worried that someone would try and ‘crack’ the screen, but they all took care to remind each other to be quiet, because a cracked screen loses a star, and that would be tragic. Tragic, I say!
The only down side is that this was running almost all day and I couldn’t use the ipad for anything else. I think I might see if this can run on Lloyd’s old iPhone and then I can stream it to the tv in the room. We’ll see…..