Should your students learn to touch type? Yes – in my opinion. It helps them get things onto the computer much quicker! It helps to develop their fine motor skills, as they are searching for the correct keys to use according to the challenge/game on the screen. I found it fantastic for my EAL learners, particularly those who had just joined our school. It provided them with a different way of learning new vocabulary, in a meaningful and fun way. They also made a lot of progress quickly, which was a great confidence boost for them.
Gamification
As I have alluded to above, Typing Club gamifies learning; as so many programs/apps do. And it works! There are over 600 lessons, free for an unlimited amount of students, and these vary from typing tests to little games such as popping a balloon once the correct key has been pressed. I have tried and tested it, successfully, with students as young as 7 years old. You can keep track of their progress as well, and in quite some detail. From when they last logged in, to how accurate they are and what their average words per minute are – I never thought I would hear the day a 3rd grader would be boasting about how many words per minute they could type.
Summary
This website is great and I think touch typing is an invaluable skill – that is until everyone is using voice-activated typing. My only issue with using it is fitting it into my lessons throughout the week. Therefore I decided to launch it in class first – set the students up with their login details, and talk them through how to complete the first few lessons. Then, I got the students to complete a certain amount of homework each week which I checked up on through the admin interface. I am still progressing through this, but I have already noticed a big improvement in their typing skills.
- Title: Typing Club
- For: Learning how to touch type
- Ages: 8-80
- Cost: Free & Paid
- Release Date: 2011