Ergonomic Keyboard Positioning
- Place the keyboard just below elbow level.
- Elbows should be in an open angle (90-110 degrees). This position relaxes your forearms and shoulders.
- Keyboard should be flat on the desk. A keyboard tray or ergonomic keyboard can be used to achieve a negative tilt in your keyboard.
- Keep your wrists straight, neither flexed upwards or downwards. Resting your wrist on the desk while typing, puts pressure on your tendons and cuts off blood circulation.
- Keep both feet flat on the floor with your back upright for maximum support. If the chair does not provide adequate support, use a lumbar pillow. Use a foot stool if needed. Your legs should form a 90-degree angle at your knees.
- If you use a wrist pad, push it flush against the keyboard, and only use it to support your palms (not wrists) when resting.
- When typing, look straight ahead without leaning forward.
Keyboard Learning Programs
- Type to Learn
- For grades kindergarten through twelfth grade.
- Offers adjustable font sizes, plays audio with rollover buttons, and adjusts text size or color for visually impaired users.
- Thirty-four lessons, five engaging, skill-targeted typing games, and seven diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments.
- Offers a pre-typing assessment that assesses current keyboarding skills, their typing speed, accuracy, and helps set personalized achievement goals for each child.
- Students learn how to type efficiently through different keyboard games. Each game or activity focuses on a specific skill such as word accuracy and typing speed. The student is then tested on that specific skills where they receive direct feedback from the teacher and administrator.
- Typing Instructor Deluxe also known as Typer Island
- The student follows a route to a castle, traveling through five unique lands, in each land, the student learns new keys, builds typing speed and accuracy, and play fun, multi-level games. Once inside of the castle, the student is presented with more engaging activities and games to help refine keyboard skills.
- The student chooses from 11 custom typing plans and 160 lessons following the standards set by the National Education Technology Standards.
- Different fun games include, “Play Ziggy”, “Wild West”, and “Typing with Sharks.”
- Typing Club
- The student practices different typing lessons until they receive all five stars.
- It offers different levels, badges, interactive experiences, proper hand posture guidelines, and a voice over feature so every word is read aloud when it is typed.
- There are different stories you can type and recreate, offers different language options, lesson plans for beginners, intermediate, and advanced.
- This is a free program and you do not need to make an account.
- Typing Agent
- Offers programs for grades kindergarten-twelfth grade.
- Different games and curriculum that automatically adapts to each students’ ability.
- As students’ progress through the typing games, they earn badges, GritCoins, and experience points, to unlock exciting games, unlock different levels, and customize their own personal avatar.
- Students are introduced to the concept of coding where they can build their own keyboarding game.
- Typing Pal
- Allows the student to adapt their best typing skills and adjust their negative typing habits.
- Three different learning environments offer coaches, animations, and practice texts perfectly suited for all ages.
- This program is for ages 6-11, 12-16, and 17 and older.
- More than 200 training activities, including pre-determined and custom exercises, practice texts, and assessments.
- A powerful algorithm responds to your needs by focusing on the most problematic keys.
- Offers educational games that target specific areas of keyboarding skills to work on.
- Fun General Keyboard Games:
- Keyboard Ninja
- Type Toss
- Keyboard Jump
- Type Rush
- Typing Attack
- Type Rapid Wars
- Key Tower
