Community reviews for QwertyTown

QwertyTown offers so much engagment and flexibility for our students and teachers. Their support has been incredible. Our students are totally engaged and motivated to type. We only wish we could applications that could do this for other subjects.

I highly recommend QwertyTown for any student in grade K-6. As the district admin I was able to differentiate the lessons and customize the learning for any and all students. From day one our students were so thoroughly engaged and challenged with all the learning activities and gamification of this keyboarding environment. On average our students proficiency with keyboarding has gone up by 50% in just one year with normal usage. QwertyTown's support staff is so helpful with any assistance we need from rostering to functionality, there was always someone to help us.

QwertyTown has completely bolstered our initiatives in keyboarding and digital literacy in the K-8 grade levels. From day 1 their support was amazing in getting us setup to helping our teachers get acclimated. QwertyTown is by far the best keyboarding program we've ever used and we've been through quite a few. Our students, teachers, admins and parent love it.

The typing practice itself is great, though the engineering has some obvious flaws like losing focus on the window by accidentally touching the trackpad. The typing tutors provide voice feedback which is helpful to students. The visuals are colorful and attention grabbing. The coins and tokens add motivation to the student experience. In my opinion, they go to far with the social components. There is simply no need for an internal chat and email program. In addition, the only way to spend the coins is on customizing your avatar - a task with no learning value. This thin use of gamification distracts the students from the inherent value of the skills they are learning and the lack of diverse bodies and looks in the avatar creation has drawn complaints from my students. (the bodies are meant to be gender neutral, but they default to a 'boy'). While lack of diversity in avatars is just a nuisance, lack of ability to differentiate student instruction or start students at different levels is concerning and frustrating considering other typing apps offer these features.

QwertyTown not only promotes keyboarding proficiency but digital literacy skills. It has made an incredible difference in our students.

Great resource to have if you have the money to commit to such a resource. There is not a lot of time in the school day to devote to keyboarding skills, but it is worth trying to squeeze it in where you can. It is a very useful tool to highlight perseverance - 8 tries for a bronze medal has as good a feeling for the recipient as does 8 levels with a gold first time every time. Good to reinforce correct typing position and can be used in registration time, as part of a computing session or as part of an after-school club. Children love to play it and don't realise they are learning - superb product!

Overall, I believe this resource is engaging and fun for students. The website include lessons which provide opportunities for modeling, guided practice and independent practice. I also like the "safe atmosphere" in which students are allowed to interact socially via e-mail or chats. Furthermore, these social interactions can only happen after students complete a specific amount of the lessons and/or earned a specific amount of tokens. There is a cost to this website.