"Talking in class" between students seems to be a problem for teachers.
Many youngsters are habituated to wandering round with earbud headphones jammed in their ears.
In class, students all wear a wireless headset with boom microphone. The headsets exclude distracting external sounds and convey the voice of the teacher. Trying to talk to another student is pontless and the alternative is lip-reading. That means turning the head, which alerts the teacher.
When a student wishes to ask a question, the teacher can enable their microphone for the whole class to hear, via a touchscreen interface.-- 8th of 7, Oct 06 2014 Speech jammer http://languagelog....enn.edu/nll/?p=3814linked before but relevant - the booms could pick up student mubles, the headsets play back their speech. all the teacher need do is learn how to project his or her voice [calum, Oct 10 2014] Might as well stick them all in a virtual reality booth. That will definitely prevent unauthorized communication between students.-- mofosyne, Oct 06 2014 pillories, equipped with retractible ball-gags.-- FlyingToaster, Oct 06 2014 Thanks for sharing that, [FT]. What you do in the privacy of your own dungeon is your own business. Why don't you go and bring out the gimp now ?-- 8th of 7, Oct 06 2014 The students that I had today were great, but last week I would have bought a ton of these. [+]-- baconbrain, Oct 06 2014 Ahh, the Panopticon Sunday service, where all the guests were locked into individual prayer boxes, where they could only see the priest. Lovely time, the Victorian age.
Wouldn't work as usually the kids are ahead of the schools technology-wise, so just another opportunity to say "[insert name here] is a big, fat [insert term of abuse]" but via the wifi to the whole school at the same time....-- not_morrison_rm, Oct 06 2014 What if the teacher is not worth listening to?-- mitxela, Oct 07 2014 Talking in front of a class by certain teachers, is something they do poorly. Heavy accents, low volume, endless repetition or "its all ion the book page umpty- squat ". Might help with the volume issue.
I Wonder how helicopter pilots in training hear the instructor above the thump thump of the blades ?-- popbottle, Oct 08 2014 //I Wonder how helicopter pilots in training hear the instructor above the thump thump of the blades ?//
...Using a system superficially similar to that proposed here by [8th].
The alternative to this idea is to call in military assistance in schools, where our old friend Corporal Punishment could come visit the class from time to time and ensure everyone is listening carefully.-- Custardguts, Oct 08 2014 And a firing squad for those who just won't keep quite no matter what.-- mofosyne, Oct 08 2014 [Custardguts] is correct. Headsets with an intercom function. However, inattention is less of an issue in flight training. Students tend to pay very close attention to their instructor, since the penalty for mistakes is a bit worse than an hour's detention, being more of the huge-fireball-with-metal -and-body-parts sort.
There is no appeal against the law of gravity.-- 8th of 7, Oct 08 2014 Just about the first IT lesson I taught (Lotus 123)..I told them it was = to make a formula work, it's not, it was +.
They were too embarrassed to point out my mistake and just worked it out for themselves.
Students learn despite the teacher/instructor sometimes.-- not_morrison_rm, Oct 08 2014 I like this idea. I attended a class once that each student sat in a sort of "half-booth", enclosed partially on both sides and the back. It was a testing room used for lecture. It surprised me first how the small walls, which only came up to the shoulder, helped quiet the room and second, it totally stopped all "chatter" between students (there always seems to be whispering or page turning, pen clicking, etc. In this case, the desks were "stepped" on platforms giving each student excellent view (like a theater). So, that gives me a small bit of experience to say this idea is a good one if all the technical details are worked out...expensive, though.-- Altoidain, Oct 09 2014 I tend to think that students should be allowed to keep their cell phones in class, but so long as they can only access a closed network covering that specific class. Online chat is so much faster than speech, plus a whole lot quieter. 10 students can post questions as they occur, without saying a word, which the teacher can address en masse as needed. Anything said is logged anyway, if you want to take out the gimp splitters.-- 4and20, Oct 10 2014 Yes indeed, what a good idea.
And next, brain implants ...
<Sound of Borg Collective quietly chuckling and rubbing hands with glee>-- 8th of 7, Oct 10 2014 random, halfbakery