OSHA Has a Lot to Say about Noise!

OSHA, which is under the United States Department of Labor and stands for Occupational Safety and Health Administration, takes great interest in occupational noise exposure. You don’t see articles about it online very often, or on the local or national news, but twenty-two million workers are exposed to potentially damaging noise at work each year. Last year, U.S. business paid more than $1.5 million in penalties for not protecting workers from noise. To put it in even larger numbers, an estimated $242 million is spent annually on workers' compensation for hearing loss disability.

If you suspect that your own workplace is too noisy, here are some clues that you’re right. From the OSHA website:

• You hear ringing or humming in your ears when you leave work.
• You have to shout to be heard by a coworker an arm's length away.
• You experience temporary hearing loss when leaving work.

If you’re reading this, chances are you don’t work in an environment where machinery and heavy

equipment are involved. Those situations require other solutions to the problems. But regardless of your home or work situation, noise controls are the first things you can implement against excessive noise exposure. With the reduction of even a few decibels, danger to your hearing is reduced and communication is improved.

This is exactly when you’ll want a Yacker Tracker. You set the acceptable decibel level before the voice or siren go off,  and if you like, you can set your unit to be only visual in situations where people are hearing-impaired, or where you require complete silence. Maybe backstage at a play? Please Take a Look to see just how it works.

We’re pleased to offer two versions of the Yacker Tracker. We also have a Deluxe model. Please See our Products to decide which one is right for you and your needs. For More Information just click and you can read our Help and FAQ page. There is also a page on our site for you to contact us directly.

Always do the best you can to save your hearing. And thank you for making us part of it. If you have some stories to share, we’d love to hear them. Enjoy your quieter and more peaceful life!

Please see our Yacker Trackers to choose the one that’s right for you and your work environment. If you think about the unwanted noise in your daily life, you will probably thing of other uses for a Yacker Tracker. We have thought of some of them, too. Yacker Tracker Uses will take you to our Idea Page. If you click on our Blog you will see even more ideas. (We never stop thinking about you!)

We hope that we can be of help. Everyone is entitled to some peace of mind. And that’s usually accomplished in a quieter setting.

To your health!

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The DEMAND and uses for Yacker Tracker is growing in ways we never imagined!

Users of Yacker Trackers are growing, and in ways we never thought. Yacker Tracker started out as being a simple tool to help teachers gain noise control in their classrooms. Yacker Tracker is now sold in almost every country in the world and used in such imaginative ways, some frankly, never expected. Exciting!

In schools they've had great success with thousands of classrooms using them to monitor sound, but school employees are an imaginative lot. For example, schools for the deaf are using them as a visual reminder to students and school cafeterias are using them for group noise control. Speech teachers and theatrical companies are using them to measure projection and even Toast Masters have used them for both projection and length of speech as well.

Of course it's been well known that hospitals are using them not only in their nurse’s stations and waiting rooms, but did you also know that they are being used in their operating rooms as well?

Business offices have started to use them to quiet overly noisy workers. Railroad lines are using them to test the effects of noise on certain towns and housing tracks. Some city council chambers have used them to monitor the length of speaker's presentations and Trader Joe's have used them as a decoration for themes in their stores.

How will you use your Yacker Tracker? Set your imagination free and be sure to let us know in what ways you use the Yacker Tracker. And, if you'd like to join in and let us know you have used Yacker Tracker in some innovative and/or unusual ways you use it, please contact us and tell us all about it. Send us a picture and we will post it!!

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Some of what teachers are saying about the Yacker Tracker

"This Yacker Tracker is not being used as a toy but as a tool in assisting classroom management in a kindergarten classroom. It does everything I had hoped it would. When the red light goes off and the siren sounds because the classroom is too loud, I don't have to say a thing. I would suggest that some kind of consequence be associated with it, however. After keeping it for a week for the children to get used to, I added a consequence for each time the siren went off. If there is no consequence, it can become a toy and the children will intentionally speak loudly to get it to go off (especially when the siren is not on). I've found it a great help and no longer have to have it on all the time."

D. Laramie

"This is really a great device for monitoring noise in any environment. We are using it in a hospital setting to inform staff and visitors when the noise level is too high. It is big enough to be seen and small enough to move around. There is no argument about what is too loud and it becomes the nagging nanny instead of some concerned person.

In conclusion, if you need to control noise levels and constant reminders don't seem to work, give this thing a try. It doesn't care if you give it a dirty look, it still flashes red and it won't go away."

Marilyn Janis Anderson

"The class loves the traffic light! They are always asking to have it on. This lets the children monitor their own noise level. It keeps me (the teacher) from saying "I think you are too loud" and worrying that maybe I am in a glunky mood and a little more sensitive that day. Now it is the traffic light that lets the kids know they are too loud. They know that the yellow is a warning. If it goes to red they lose some recess time. We brought this light up to the lunch room and all the teachers couldn't believe how quiet the lunch room was. Both the young eaters and the older grades were much more aware of their own noise. I recommend it to schools!"

 jlr

"The Yakker Trakker takes the work out of quieting a classroom. I teach high school math. When I first turned the machine on I thought the siren was too soft but the kids absolutely hate it. If you set it to 50 or 60 decibels it does go off with even a slight bit of noise. I use this mode for a penalty. If the kids are being loud I set it to 60 for 2 minutes. The yakker trakker will go off a lot in those two minutes but you will be shocked at how quiet your class becomes after those 2 minutes. Classroom talking is definitely a snowball effect. If you stop the momentum with the yakker trakker it will soon die out. I do wish they made a 65 dB level because I find that 60 is too sensitive and 70 is not sensitive enough. Other than that I must say that I LOVE the yakker trakker. It has really changed my life!!! I no longer find myself yelling at my period 5 class. If they are talking all I have to do is start tracking the yacking. Thanks Yakker Trakker."

Jeremy

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A Brief History of the Yacker Tracker

It was one of the toughest courses the university had for its 5th year graduate students. The course, for teaching majors, was Classroom Management, and is arguably one of the toughest tasks that teachers face: techniques of keeping your classroom calm and quiet for appropriate learning environments.

Then in 2001, the Yacker Tracker won the new product ‘Best of Show’ award from the NSSEA (National School Supply and Equipment Association)

In 2003, Fran introduced the Deluxe Yacker Tracker featuring a handy remote control.

A few years later in 2011, the Yacker Tracker was redesigned to be more efficient, featuring the phrase “Quiet Please” in 7 languages due in large part to the Yacker Tracker’s success with hospitals and medical offices, and also partially due to new OSHA requirements.

The year was 1999 and Fran Rebello, then a teacher at the university, came up with a rather ingenious idea, an invention known as TAG, short for The Attention-Getter. When she combined that with another teacher who was using a sound meter, the original Yacker Tracker was born.

2012 – Testimonial

“Your contribution to our school has impacted the behavior of over 500 students. The Yacker Tracker has helped give the students a better self-monitoring tool during lunch time. Students are able to see the lights go off when they are getting too loud and then they quiet down. There is a reward system in place for when the students do well and don't trigger the red light to go off too many times. The primary grades have been extremely successful since the implementation of the Yacker Tracker and continue to do well. The intermediate grades are still getting used to the Yacker Tracker. Thank you so much for supporting our cause. Because of you, our students are eating lunch and are better prepared for the classroom.”

With gratitude,
Ms. Warrington

Then in 2013, the Yacker Tracker was used in a television documentary on how loud train whistles were at different distances, in other words, just how many miles away a person could hear train whistles and how loud they were at those distances.

In 2015, the Yacker Tracker was included in the book Mastering Leadership: A Vital Resource for Health Care Organizations, as a tool to measure and self-monitor noise levels in hospital waiting rooms, nurses stations, and surgery rooms.

Again, if you'd like to join in and add your testimonial about how using the Yacker Tracker has helped you, or some innovative and/or unusual ways you use it, please contact us and tell us all about it.

There's much more to this story that we will bring you in upcoming posts.

The one and only original Yacker Tracker by AGI Attention-Getters, Inc!

Yacker Tracker is one of the most original, kid-friendly noise control products that have ever been invented.

The familiar traffic light signal design is put to appropriate use in measuring the amount of sound in a classroom, hospital patient hallways, just about anywhere.

You can find the Yacker Tracker in schools, hospitals, and even in a mine in Australia. Over the next few months we will tell you a little bit about the history of Yacker Tracker, the background of its' creator, Fran Rebello, and even some testimonials from people who use it. On that note, if you'd like to join in and add your testimonial about how using the Yacker Tracker has helped you, or some innovative and/or unusual ways you use it, please contact us and tell us all about it.

So hang out with us as we continue this fascinating and inspiring tale throughout the year!

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