5 Qualities to Look for in Keyboarding Programs for Students

Which Keyboarding Programs are Best?

There are hundreds of keyboarding programs available for students—from basic free solutions to robust programs that integrate with your LMS. Knowing which to choose depends on your goals, resources and budget. However, there are also some core qualities that ensure your students are getting an effective keyboarding education. 

In this article, we discuss the top qualities to look for when evaluating keyboarding programs and why each is important in your students’ keyboarding progress.

5 Qualities of Successful Keyboarding Programs for Students

Below are some of the best qualities to look for in a keyboarding program for students. These qualities ensure that the program you choose will be effective and engaging for your students while helping you to achieve your classroom or institution goals.

1. Well-Paced 

One of the first qualities to look for in a keyboarding program is the pace of the curriculum. Too fast of a pace will mean students are missing out on the mastery of new skills before they’re asked to move on. Too slow of a pace will bore students, reducing their progress and interest. The best way to measure the effectiveness of the program’s pace is to sample the program.

2. Adapts to Student’s Progress

 ith learning programs becoming more technologically advanced, some offer adaptive learning programs. This means the program will measure a student’s speed and accuracy, then assign individualized exercises based on their current progress. This is an excellent way to maximize the effectiveness of a keyboarding program as it helps to meet the student where they are and to personalize their path forward.

3. Game Elements

Game elements in a keyboarding program for students help to improve engagement in the platform. Moving through a prescriptive pathway and being able to achieve badges or other awards helps to motivate progress.

4. Real-World Application

While most keyboarding programs will teach typing in a virtual learning environment, they often lack a seamless transition to real-world applications. The best keyboarding programs for students will integrate opportunities to practice typing skills in a variety of word processing applications to help practice and reinforce the application of these skills in real life.

5. Automatic Scoring

Finally, a keyboarding program should have automated scoring and reporting. This will help the teacher or administrator measure individual progress as well as overall class/grade/school performance. An automated platform helps to close the loop between practice and score collection without risking losing scores or information, as is the risk with manual score collection.

What About Free Keyboarding Programs?

While there are many free keyboarding programs available for students, these aren’t recommended for educational environments for several reasons.

• Unverified Security. While students are at school, their security online is the joint responsibility of the teachers and administration. A free web-based typing program doesn’t have the verified security that you would receive from a paid program.
• Ads-Based. Most free typing programs are supported by ads, which means your students may be distracted or tempted by pop-ups, video ads, dynamic banners and more during their lesson. You will have no control over the ad content or whether your student chooses to disrupt their work to watch or click on one of these ads.
• Unsupported. Technical glitches happen—progress may go unsaved, login information may be lost, or updates may be incompatible with your browser or operating system. Free keyboarding programs most likely have unreliable support—or none at all. However, a professional program will have an official support team ready to troubleshoot in an effective, timely manner.
• Limited or No Reporting. Regardless of which keyboarding program you use, you most likely have goals for your students’ progress. Many keyboarding programs will have reporting not only on a student-by-student basis, but also detailed reporting for the teacher or administrator. However, a free program is much less likely to have these administrative capabilities.

Learn More

Would you like to learn more about Learning.com’s EasyTech keyboarding program for students? Read reviews of our program online or visit our keyboarding page and get free trial access today.

Further Reading