wireless headphones

[ClaireJoanne]

Hi there

We have a problem in school that all the headphones keep getting tangled together.

Has anybody tried wireless headphones?

How does this work in the IT suite?

How much did you pay?

Thanks

Claire

[RichCowell]

I've only used a few pairs at home in different rooms, and there were limited channels available - causing interference - one set of headphones would pick up different transmitter, so I would have thought this would be a lot worse with 30ish pairs in one room...

I could be wrong though :-p

[achedgy]

Always avoided this, kids swapping them round, batteries, expensive in the first place and breaking them, I'd avoid it, to me, straightening out the leads is far less hassle (or train the kids / a ta to do it)

[Mcshammer_dj]

I also found that the local taxi company radios caused problems as did the Radars from Ships in port(Mainly a problem if you live near a large military port)

[ClaireJoanne]

Hi guys
Thanks for quick replies - this is pretty much what I thought.
Guess I'll have to set somebody on untangling duty!!
Claire

[RichCowell]

Do you have anywhere to store them hung up, allowing the wires to dangle individually and not get tangled? That's the way we've done it in one suite... As most of the tangling happened when stored in boxes...

[OB1]

I did a spell in audio and lighting a long time ago.
Velcro cable ties can be pretty good for stuff thats in regular use, they're cheaper than new headphones/cables too.
I think you can get ones that actually glue to the cables, which would stop them disappearing down the back of the computers.

[soveryapt]

We've got some large hooks and put them on the side of each machine and then bought head phones with fairly short leads (i.e. no more than the pupils would need) and then have them left with each of the machines in the suite. The only tangling issue we get is with the laptop trollies.

[ClaireJoanne]

Hi
Yes we tried hanging them on the monitors. Pupils share a pc though so they were hanging off both sides and they got tangled together with the keyboard/mice cables!! They had fairly short cables too (about 1m).
I've seen them hanging on hooks in other schools - we haven't much room though - it's quite a small IT suite. I might have a look at this option though.
Thanks for all replies.
Claire

[robmal]

One of the banes of my life - headphones. Cable tangles and the kids just breaking them all the time. We get very cheap ones, just over £2.00 each, and hang them up, but the last batch had far longer cables and so the problems continue.....

from about Year 9 onwards it seems that our pupils don't really like using them anyway and just about all say they have their own phone/mp3 player ones at school anyway. So I have considered removing them - its the younger years which don't own nice phones etc that it would disadvantage

[rad]

One of the ICT Teachers got their mum/gran (insert helpful person here) to make fabric bags for them. Not sure how long they lasted but was a good idea.

[Brpilot99]

I'm just about to trail a suite of 6 pc's with a new wireless solution for headphones. The transmitters are very low power and are highly directional. The headphones turn themselves off after 10 minutes of non activity to save the batteries. Ive tried them with 2 PC's with great success and am now expanding the trial to 6 machines in a mini suite. PM me if anybody would like to have updated information on this. These are in the development stage by a local company and are likely to retail at aroung £30.00 for the transmitter and phones.

[plexer]

Sounds interesting keep us posted.

Ben

[witch]

Do you have anywhere to store them hung up, allowing the wires to dangle individually and not get tangled? That's the way we've done it in one suite... As most of the tangling happened when stored in boxes...

We have installed a metal bar that stands off the wall like a towel rail (think it might be one!) high up (so teachers can access but most children cannot) to hang the headphones on and then another thinner bar much lower down to hold the cables against the wall. It seems to be working very well so far. We got a good deal on 'proper' headphones with the padded headpiece from Millenium which sit nicely on the bar. It looks quite good as well!