The purpose of education is to prepare students and equip them with the right tools and skills to help them easily blend in the job market and workforce. Typing quickly and correctly is one of the most important skills our students need to work and develop to meet part of post graduation challenges.
I personally never learnt how to type quickly until a couple of years ago, but this should not be the case with our students. The world has so much changed and so do learning habits and needs. Today's learners are more digitally focused than what we were and to help them learn how to use their keyboards correctly is something that every teacher should urgently consider. In this regard I have compiled a list of free web tools and programs that are primarily designed to help users :
- Practice and improve typing skills
- Test typing speed
- Test typing accuracy
- Learn healthy typing postures
I have also included these typing tools in two presentations : the first one is done using Issuu and the second one which you will find below is done using Google Docs.
Here is the Issu slideshow
10-Fast-Fingers is a cool web application. It allows its users to test their typing speed to find out how fast they type and where they position themselves against others.
TypeRacer is an online speed typing game. It allows its users to race each other by typing quotes from books, movies, and songs. It is the first multiplayer typing game on the web.
Keybr is a tool for touch typing practice. It allows its users to improve their typing speed togther with typing without having to look at the keyboard.
4- Typing Web
Explore tutorials that provide instant feedback after every free typing lesson. It offers beginner through advanced typing lessons for free.
This is a fun, open source, program designed to help young students learn touch typing skills through smart and interactive games.
6- Sense Language
This is a typing program that allows its users to create their own typing activities or use the website's standardized lessons.
TypeFaster is a tool that teaches you how to touch type fast uisng a set of free typing tutorials. This program comes in three version: Standard, Accessible and Spanish. The Standard version is the ideal one so far for it has quite many interesting features.
This one here has a small collection of five typing games and lessons that students can use to develop their typing skills.
9- Typing Lessons Online
Typing Lessons Online is a free touch typing program that allows its users to type fast using their ten fingers. It offers free and interactive typing lessons and exercises for all levels.
10- Good Typing
This is a free online typing skill development program. It provides 27 graduated lessons designed to help students learn how to use their keyboard correctly.
11- Typing Speed Monitor
This is a Google Chrome extension that will track how fast you type and what keys you use most frequently.
This is an interesting game that tests your vocabulary and your ability to type quickly.
13- Type It
This is a free online program for typing accent marks and other special characters that are often required for languages other than English.
14- Lite Type
This is a virtual keyboard that allows you type and search the web in your choice of 53 different languages.
15- Dance Mat
This is provided by BBC to improve students touch typing skills through a series of lessons covering four different levels. The difficulty moves up gradually from level one where students are introduced to a lesson on the right placement of their hands on the keybaord to level four where they will learn elaborate keybaording tips.
Here is a presentation containing all these web tools