Typing. It is a skill that everyone needs. Yet it is one of the most gut-wrenchingly boring and tedious things to learn. Back in my day, there were some pretty awful programs to teach you to type – Mario Teaches Typing is the only one I can recall off the top of my head. There was also a class in middle school. However, here at the Alabama Educational Technology Conference (AETC), we just came across a much needed update to the typing program: KeyboardingOnline.

KeyboardingOnline is a cloud based typing platform. They offer several different courses, for all levels of typists. Here is how they describe their Keyboarding Mastery course:

In approximately 50-60 hours (a good quarter or semester course), beginners can reach speeds of 25-35+ WPM and also attain accepted accuracy standards of one (1) error per minute of timed writing. Timing drills range from 15-second to 5-minute and allow more reinforcement to maintain the skills learned.

There are over 560 timed drills that are automatically scored and recorded when the student meets the standards set by the instructor (the instructor sets his/her own grading and accuracy standards. Every lesson contains timed drills and students are encouraged to meet the standards applied by the instructor beginning right with Lesson 1.¹

We had a chance to catch up with the KeyboardingOnline team at AETC. We learned a little bit more about their approach and program: