Tuesday, April 11, 2006

"The Typing is the Reward" - Typist Proverb

A couple customers and a staff member have asked me about providing a typing class. Well, I took typing in high school for a semester and I know that you cannot "teach" someone how to type. You basically show them where to put your fingers and the rest is practice, practice, practice.

The real catch is knowing what to type. Well, the Web has plenty of free typing skills sites that you can use as a guide. Here they are. I attempted to place them in order of difficulty:

Peter's Online Typing Course: Excellent overall course on typing with lots of exercises.

GoodTyping: A good introductory test. This shows you how to place your fingers on the keyboard and such.

TouchTyping: Similar to GoodTyping, perhaps with better graphics.

Letters (a game): A different take on it. If you liked Space Invaders, you may enjoy this.

PowerTyping: Starts measuring mistakes and wpm (words per minute).

TypingTest: Similar to PowerTyping.

SpeedTypingTest: Another free test.

OK, this is enough for now. If you have others that you have used, let me know and I will add the link.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

In retrospect, the typing class I took for a semester in 10th grade taught me one of the most useful skills you can have as an adult. And you're right, it takes practice, practice, practice!

Kevin Dixon said...

Yes, being a fast typist is a great benefit to learning and being comfortable with a computer.

It reminds me of a baby's developmental capabilities in relation to crawling or walking.

As soon as a baby starts crawling, their brain begins to develop more because they are now mobile. As the baby begins to walk, the brain develops further because the baby experiences more because he/she is even more mobile.

If you do not know how to type, it takes forever to do things in an online environment. Therefore, you don't make as many connections as someone who knows how to type fast.

I know that is a little off the wall, but...