The first free software I looked at was www.typing.madefun.net
I took at typing speed test and it was fun. It kept record of my time, speed and accuracy. I think this could be a wonderful resource for students to practice their keyboarding skills. I know when I took typing in high school (many, many moons ago), the speed drills that we did were beneficial in helping me to increase my speed and accuracy.
The second software I looked at was touch-type.com and it also offered a speed type test. I think these websites are good ways to practice typing as well as give yourself a sense of how well you actually do type.
The third software I looked at was typingweb teaching portal and I looked at a beginner lesson entitled The Top Row Keys exercise and it shows how to position fingers and reach for the top row of the keyboard. I also looked at Homerow and Beyond lesson. This lesson shows how to position your fingers on the keyboard. This is a beginning lesson but very informative because it shows the proper way to position your fingers so that you can type with ample speed and efficiency.
From your description the first two sound really alike, yet I speculate there were differences in appearances and approaches, even if the end result is more or less the same. I would value a little more description on these sorts of issues in the future when you are comparing similar programs. For example, when you look at web browsers, the end result is going to be similar, but I will be interested in what you think if the subtleties of their presentation of an interface to the web.
ReplyDeleteNo penalties for this report (full credit given), but I want you to stretch a bit further in the future. Thanks!