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Typing.com
Pros: Helpful performance data. Games and choose-your-own-adventure stories keep it fun.
Cons: No way to assign individual lessons to students, only full units. Distracting ads on the free version.
Bottom Line: Tool offers clear and extensive instruction, entertaining practice, and trackable metrics.
In the robust teacher dashboard, teachers can create unlimited classes with unlimited students, teachers, and administrators. They set up their classes either manually or by syncing with Google Classroom, Clever, or ClassLink. Students can also self-join with a custom link made for their class. Students then log in through their own portals and can customize their learning environment.
Typing.com excels in the number of ways that teachers can customize the student experience. From the dashboard, teachers can:
- Monitor real-time and overall student and class progress with fine-grained statistics
- Download progress reports and manage students easily
- Customize lessons, games, and controls that students have access to
- Specify benchmarks for student success, such as a minimum typing speed and accuracy
- Preview the content of each lesson
- Set and regularly change a message that shows up on the student dashboard when students log in, which is helpful for giving assignments or cheering them on
- Limit the IP addresses that can access the curriculum
To add extra cross-curricular benefits, teachers can create custom lessons and typing tests with their own content, perhaps building on a history lesson or providing science content.
The one thing the teacher dashboard is missing is a way to directly assign individual lessons to students. This would be useful for reinforcing particular skills. That said, teachers can assign full units, and this will work just fine for most beginner typists who will be looking to work through all of the content. Keep in mind that the site displays ads with free accounts, but paid premium accounts remove those and provide a few additional features, such as unlimited data retention.
Typing.com provides dozens of free, informative typing lessons from beginner through advanced levels. This curriculum departs from the traditional home row instruction by beginning with the F, J, and space keys, then moving on to U, R, and K, then adding more keys from there. Students test their skills with challenging practice exercises, eventually expanding to words, sentences, and paragraphs. After each completed screen, students can see their word-per-minute (WPM) and accuracy percentages and star ratings. There are also timed tests for one-, three-, and five-minute lengths, after which students can print completion certificates. There are 10 themes for students to customize their experience and seven customizable games for having extra fun while they practice and hone their skills.
In addition to the regular keyboarding lessons and tests, practice options include specialized content, 10-key, common medical terms, and jokes; adaptive, targeted problem-key practice; and adventure stories that students both type and control, making story decisions along the way. There's also important additional content with special lessons on how to use a computer, online safety and behavior, time management, formatting correspondence and reports, and coding essentials, introducing students to HTML and CSS. These extra lessons include a mix of instruction, quizzes, and typing practice.
As students progress, the avatar for their chosen theme levels up, creating a clear visual element to their achievements and progress. There are also badges for typing speed and accuracy, typing test speeds, games played, and more. Kids can see their own stats, helping them track their progress, and can keep tabs on their problem keys as well as a class scoreboard to compare progress with other students.
Typing.com's lessons work for students in K-12, providing instruction for beginners through those needing more targeted, challenging practice. The practice section is quite advanced, with frequently used medical terms, special Dvorak practice, and 10-key. Practice lessons also include typing the most-used English words and a personalized practice section based on students' most troublesome letters. Sections include a wrap-up lesson at the end.
Typing.com includes a fair amount of encouragement, which is a nice touch. Section introductions contain positive notes aimed at students. For additional motivation, kids also receive badges for completing lessons, and as they collect XP (experience points), their chosen avatar grows or develops. Students have access to their own progress data, both for individual lessons and overall. This helps them become more invested in improving their skills. For the sections that include quizzes, students can see the questions and answers afterward, helping them review.
The teacher dashboard has a vast array of customization options, both in terms of looking at student stats and tailoring what students can and can't see/do, as well as creating custom lessons and timed tests. Custom lessons and tests made by teachers can add cross-curricular instruction, and there are features aimed at making this site more accessible: The site is available in English and Spanish, the videos include transcripts, and text-to-speech dictation is available.
Learning Rating
Community Rating
Simple to use for typing
Useful website for keyboard practice for anyone who is starting out typing or those who want to improve their typing skills. Entertaining games for students to reinforce their typing skills.
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