By Beth Colbert
Keyboarding is an essential skill at Bentonville School District, where I serve as software administrator. We are a 1:1 district, so typing skills are a requirement for day-to-day schoolwork, and state tests in Arkansas require students to have functional typing skills by grade 3.
Continue reading Deploying a Districtwide Keyboarding Solution
By Toni Wimmer
With all the many subjects and skills today’s students need to learn and the limited resources schools have to teach them, it’s not uncommon for subjects that once had their own class to get folded into other courses. As an elementary librarian, I’ve seen this firsthand at my own schools, where we’ve recently incorporated typing instruction into the larger library curriculum. It’s a natural fit in many ways—typing is an integral part of the research and digital citizenship instruction we mostly focus on.
Continue reading 5 Tips for Adding Typing to Your Library Curriculum
By Jessica Butcher
As a computer science teacher for students in grades 2-4 at Cartmell Elementary School, it’s clear to me that typing is a foundational skill for a range of disciplines. In a 1:1 computing school like ours, however, it’s a foundational academic skill, as well.
Continue reading Motivating Kids to Practice Keyboarding When No One’s Looking
Schools around the world have been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, and educators have been asked to make the transition from in-person to online learning in a matter of days.
Continue reading TypeTastic School Edition is FREE Until June 30!
It likely comes as no surprise that children’s first exposure to keyboards comes well before they enter elementary school. In 2017, children up to age eight spent an average of 2 hours and 19 minutes every day on screen media. Virtually every household has a smartphone or tablet in the home, with 45% of all children having their own mobile device!
Continue reading Why Typing is Key to Success on Standardized Tests
Every student has unique needs, and it can be a challenge to meet those for any school. In virtual schools, however, the unique needs of individual students combine in a dizzying array of diversity. In a recent article for District Administration , VirtualSC Curriculum Coordinator Deirdre Edwards explained how they met those needs for nearly 30,000 students in the 2018-2019 academic year alone.
Continue reading How a Virtual School Meets the Needs of Diverse Learners
What could be better than classrooms full of students playing their way to typing mastery? How about entire schools and districts playing their way to typing mastery! Two million users play TypeTastic games each month, and now we’ll bring students, teachers, and administrators together with powerful new tools that turn TypeTastic into a truly district-wide solution.
Continue reading The New TypeTastic Combines Fun and Games with District-Level Management
By Dr. Wendy Thompson
Keyboarding is an essential office skill but, as I wrote in a previous blog, for my students with special needs, it also opens doors to communication with other people. I’ve found that for my students, developing typing skills through engaging keyboarding practice can be a conduit to expanded use of technology, along with greater academic opportunities and achievement.
Continue reading How Engagement in Typing Instruction Opens Doors to Tech
By Alan Gielen
Like most people, I enjoy some variety in life. A large reason I switched from teaching biology to being a technology teacher is because the latter allows me to teach a range of subjects, topics, and grades. My students like variety, too, so I make sure we cover disparate topics and skills within the confines of standards and curricular requirements.
Continue reading Variety is the Key to Teaching 21st-Century Skills
By Demetra Adams
As the computer science and technology teacher, it’s my responsibility to ensure each of our students is prepared to use the devices that will be available to them throughout their academic careers at Collins-Rhoades Elementary School. Our students have access to desktops, laptops, and iPads. In grades K–5, they use each nearly every day, so there’s a lot to learn from day one.
Continue reading Why Typing and Mousing Are Essential for a Tech-Rich Education