Title: About this Course (Teachers/Moodle Admins Only)
Course: Typing Tutor

Information about this course for teachers and Moodle Admins.

Welcome to Typing 101

This course began life as part of a stand alone website I used with my students back in 2003.  Over the next few years, I updated the activity and then mostly forgot about it. A few years ago, I started working at a new school and dusted off the code.  In order to get it to work with Moodle, I had to learn a little bit about SCORM; the code isn't pretty, but it does work.

How to Use the Course

This is a traditional typing course; you start with the home keys, use proper fingering, and practice until you get it right.  Each exercise must be completed with 10 AWPM (Adjusted Words Per Minute which is the Words Per Minute minus Errors) or more, or the score cannot be submitted.

Instructions

Students need to type every line as accurately as possible.  At the end of each line, press return.

Key:

# / Total: This shows which line is the student is on out of the total number of lines.

Time: How long the student has been typing.

WPM: This is the words per minute typed.

Errors: This shows the number of errors in typing.  Please note that due to the way errors are calculated, a 1/2 error is possible.

AWPM: This is the Adjusted Words Per Minute (WPM - Errors = AWPM)

When the student is finished typing, they will see something like the following.  If the AWPM is greater than 10, they can send their score (by clicking "Send Score") which will record it in the gradebook.  If their score is less then 10, they will need to click "Try Again!" and start over.

Other Functions:

Modern / Classic: There are two graphics modes: Modern and Classic.  The default is Modern; some students may prefer the classic mode.

Pause: This allows a student to pause the assignment and then come back to it later (as long as the browser is not closed).

Known Issues:

- As the screen width of the typing exercise is large, you may need to dock all of the blocks on the left side of the screen to see the whole exercise.
- Occasionally, a score is sent, but does not go through.  In the gradebook, this will appear as a zero.
- The colors are hard coded in the SCORM object and cannot be changed without opening the SCORM object, changing the code, zipping it, and then uploading it again.
- The minimum score of 10 is also hardcoded and can only be changed by opening every SCORM object and editing the code.
- I don't remember where I got the keyboard images found in this course; I can't guarantee they are copyright free.  Sorry about that.

Change Log (Jan 2014)

New Difficulty Settings Added (But they must be changed in the code directly for each SCORM object)

- Easy uses the WPM as the score (Students must score 10 or higher)
- Hard uses AWPM (WPM-Errors) as the score (Students must score 10 or higher)
- None uses the WPM as the score (No minimum score required)

New Graphics Mode

- The Graphics Mode shows better the student's progress and where they are typing
- It hides the original text box, although it still uses it as the source of the typed text
- This is the new Modern Mode. The old Modern is now Classic.

The old Classic graphics mode has been removed
Errors are calculated more accurately in the new Graphics Mode
More use of CSS rather than HTML tags for design

About the Author

This course was created over a period of 11 years, from 2003 to 2014 by Christian Thompson.  Since 1995, I have been teaching, managing Moodle sites, making web pages, and doing various tech-related jobs in various capacities and in various countries, including Japan, Korea, and Romania.  Please feel free to follow me on Twitter (@tokyoedtech), check out my blog (http://www.christianthompson.com), or visit my business website (Team Thompson Online).  Please feel free to contact me at christian@teamthompsononline.com if you have any questions or comments.   I would love to hear from anyone using this course.

Copyright

This course and everything in it are provided with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. You can find more information here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/