Typing Time

Foreign.

Thanks for listening to the Tech Tools for Teachers podcast, where each week we talk about a free piece of two of technology that you can use in your classroom.

I'm your host, Shannon Martin.

I'm a middle school teacher, technology, and instructional coach for my district, and I'm.

Her producer and husband, Fuzz Martin.

I've had too much coffee, and that's the key to the success of the show.

You know, it's okay.

Yeah.

Key to anything.

The key to the world.

The key to my heart.

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody.

Aw, cute.

By the way, key to our heart.

Daphne, who bought you a coffee?

Yeah, I always appreciate when I get little messages from people who buy me a coffee and send me a fun message.

So thanks, Daphne.

Yeah, that's much appreciated.

Nice little spark to get our.

Our.

Our show flowing for the day.

Yeah.

Yay.

Yay.

So I'm glad we're here because the sickness has hit the Martin house, so.

Man, everything that's been out there and spreading through the Midwest, like, we've got it.

So I had influenza type A.

That could have been my pun.

Oh, that could have been ye.

The norovirus, which is also ripping through schools in our area.

I didn't have norovirus.

Our child did.

Yes.

And then our older child going to a concert now has the flu as well.

Yes.

So there's a lot just spreading through and bits and pieces.

Anyway, we're all happy to be here and healthy and functioning, and we have fun things to chat about with everybody today.

So on that note, we are talking.

Talking about.

We're talking.

We're talking typing.

We're apparently not talking.

Well, but we're talking.

We're talking about typing today.

So I was thinking about this as I've shared several other episodes that are talking and highlighting typing tools using your classroom.

We here in Wisconsin, our students start typing state testing around third grade, and they need to be able to have typing skills.

And it's hard because kids do a lot of things on tablets where they don't have typing skills.

And, like, my middle schoolers are on their phones all the time, and they don't actually have to use a keyboard.

And so I always encourage typing skills and actually being able to put your fingers on the keys and type them appropriately, like practicing the piano.

Like practicing typing is important.

So I always share, like, gaming sites and fun things to get students engaged.

But I've also realized that a lot of times, not a lot of times, but sometimes typing gaming sites can be blocked in schools because of gaming rules.

Gaming rules and things being blocked.

And so they can practice those things at home, but not necessarily always in the classroom or as a teacher, you're like, okay, I need you to really just focus on getting this skill mastered.

And we're not able to play the games or we have a short amount of time or that kind of thing.

So I wanted to highlight some typing websites that are helpful.

They teach skills, they're quick, they're simple to build in your classroom.

So those are my highlights.

Like my five things are.

They meet all the basic skills that you need for typing.

They are.

Both of these sites can fall into these categories.

They're easily used.

And I was thinking not just in computer class.

We only have computer class offered in sixth grade and then in high school when they're doing like computer applications type things.

But like ELA class, like one of these I'm going to highlight is going to talk about like punctuation.

You literally could practice punctuation while you're practicing your typing skills.

Like, here's a semicolon, semicolon, semicolon, semicolon, comma, comma, comma.

Anyway, you can practice your actual punctuation.

Also capitalization.

Because I feel like sometimes that's getting lost with our students.

And they're like, I have to capitalize sentence.

Like, yes, you do.

And AI.

And your.

Your keyboards aren't always going to check that for you.

So making sure you're capitalizing things.

And it's a great review.

So both of these are great review sites.

They're fast.

You can focus on specific skills and they're very simple to use.

So you wouldn't have to have a bunch of setup or background or creating accounts or any of that kind of stuff.

You can just use them.

If you want to create accounts, you can, but you don't have to.

So the first one I'm going to talk about, it's called how to type.

So it's H o w to type.com, how to type.

It's very straightforward.

I do love that when you go to howtotype.com, it has in the upper right hand corner, you can choose your color theme.

So if you want tropical or ice, there are color combinations for you to engage in your typing skills.

Stranger is black and red.

It's very exciting.

I'm gonna go back to tropical because we could use some sunshine around here.

So with that, free typing lessons, typing practice and typing tests are all together in this little.

In this website.

And you can click learn to type or practice typing and then I appreciate the actual like.

So you got your usual home row, your top row, your bottom row, capital letters.

You can focus just on capital letters.

And you can hold that little shift key and do those J's and those K's and make sure that you're actually practicing your skills with capitalization again.

That's why I think it'd be great in ELA class.

Because if you're practicing punctuation and language arts and you're writing might be helpful.

Punctuation, you have your exercises.

You can click on it.

It's going to bring your right back in.

So you can do your colons and your semicolons and your commas, and you just hit the restart button.

So you can just have kids, like, all right, as a group, let's see how fast you can do it.

Put a timer up on the front of your board and just see how they can go through it.

It's not formal where they're gonna, like, test it.

But you.

It's practice.

So it's to practice these skills.

Some of it, too.

I think of when you're teaching ELA and you're talking about punctuation and some of those that you don't use very often, like a semicolon.

Like, you could talk about why you use it and then where to find it on the keyboard.

Because I feel like sometimes in a Chromebook, if my students are using their computers, they don't know how to do some of the things on their computers.

So I think that that could be also helpful in a lesson.

If you're combining things.

Numbers lesson.

You can go through.

And all your numbers are there with practice.

And then symbols, things that we don't use very often, such as the.

And sign.

You can practice those things as well.

I'm taking a typing test.

I gathered that that's what you were doing.

Because you are, like, hammering away at your keys.

I'm like, he's gotta be taking a test right now.

I got 74 words.

Minute on the first one.

I've done faster than that.

So I'm giving up on this one.

Because it's because you're under, like, pressure now.

Because we're talking about.

Because we're talking about me.

Yeah.

Practice a new quote so you can practice not just sentences, but actually it'll give you quotes to practice that you can do any topic, any length, which is kind of fun.

You can swap up quotes again.

It fits into ELA class, along with computer class or anything else that you want to kind of build in with practice.

They do have typing of quotes.

They have typing code.

So you can practice actually typing code, which to me is huge for kids to understand when I'm teaching them code basics that basically when you're typing code, it's not going to be full words necessarily or it's not going to be in your traditional how you write a sentence.

So they always get frustrated if they write a line of code.

They're like, it doesn't work.

I'm like, I know because you're writing it like a sentence and now you don't need to write it like a sentence.

Sentence.

So I do appreciate that they have practice writing code in here, which would be great in a coding class, a STEM class, a computer class, and just teaching them that writing code actually looks different than writing sentences.

And either way, like, there's skills just to get your brain kind of thinking about that.

So how to type.

Just lots of options.

Like there's a speed test, there's lessons.

And yes, if you choose, there are some games at the bottom.

So there are a few games built into there as well.

So those are options.

But I do just appreciate, like the clarity and the lessons that kind of walk you through stuff.

And if your kids are not able to do gaming things in your building or if you want them to send them home with practice that their families can do with them, this is definitely an option.

And German teachers, if you scroll to the bottom and click the little German flag, it flips all into German and you can teach in German.

That's amazing.

It's all the way at the very, very bottom in, like the starfish, you'll find the German flag.

That's fun.

Well, there you go.

So howtotype.com lots of great basics.

Lots of great things that would be helpful.

Yes.

And in a tropical theme.

In a tropical theme or in the ice theme or.

Yes.

Or something else.

Yes.

So try it out.

Test out your typing skills.

I'd love to hear what your, your scores are.

Yes.

My word per minute.

Got the 84.

So.

Okay.

While we're talking, so.

Yeah, exactly.

Thank you.

Love it.

Thank you.

All right, Our second site, similar is going to be another again, line it out.

Basics typing site is Keber K E Y B R dot com.

It's perfect for this cold weather.

Keeber.

Wow, we're doing great here.

Okay.

And the first one, I would say you could definitely do third or fourth grade on up.

Same here.

And this one has more ads that pop up just so you're aware.

But this one you can sign in.

You can Have a little sign in, keep track of scores, or you can just practice your typing skills.

So you click or press to activate and then it is going to give you your sentences and it is going to give you your little typing test.

This one, the reason why I like Keeber is that it actually shows you the keyboard as you're typing it.

So as you're typing it, like flashes the letter on the keyboard that's on the screen in front of you so you can type.

And it shows you a little keyboard where things are located and it circles it for you.

So beginners that are hunting and pecking and trying to find their keys, it will actually like circle click the space bar and it kind of teaches you the location.

And I like that as you type, it flashes it on the screen and you can see what's happening as you're typing.

So I'm like typing and talking here.

And it's kind of a visual, which is crazy.

If your brain works that way, where you're going to see the letter that you're typing on the screen in front of you, just below the sentence that you're typing, which is weird.

I think I'm going to put.

I think I'm going to put just typing sounds underneath this whole episode.

So it sounds like you're just like.

Because we are both typing and talking at the same time, but we both have little quiet keyboards.

You cannot hear us hammering on keyboards as we're doing this.

But yes.

So you can do all keys speed, cranky.

And this one works your way through.

So you have to work through your E's or N's or I's or A's or L's, R's and L's and then it will like move you forward on that.

Like I said, you can click Practice.

You can this one make a little profile and you can have your little sign in if you choose to.

And you have those options of letters, digits, punctuation, characters are options as well.

This one just basically goes through your speed and will track it.

It has little charts below.

So if you scroll further down on the screen, you can see how fast your reactive speed typing is.

So again, another, just a simple site.

It gives you the information to practice your typing.

And this one gives you like a visual as you type, which is kind of cool as you're doing it.

It'd also be great if you're teaching a lesson if you put this up on like a smart board or on a digital board in front of your room.

And if you're typing the kids can see it flash, like, as you're typing where it is on the keyboard, which might be kind of fun for a challenge in your classroom as well.

Cool.

Yeah.

74 words a minute.

That's kind of pretty consistent.

An ormat.

Nice.

Not bad.

No.

Now though, you're gonna, like, race yourself through and then we'll put your highest score.

I'll just put it in the blog this week and I'll be like, buzz.

I'll just be at home to hold.

Got carpal tunnel from like over a hundred Podcasting.

Yeah, you're doing it wrong.

Love it.

Okay, so typing time.

We are highlighting these two sites so how to type and keeper.com keeper.

And you should test them out.

Practice your typing skills, challenge yourself.

And also it'll support your kids in your classroom and they should have some fun.

And yes, you can always build some of those other episodes that we've talked about with the typing games in.

But these are just some basics that hopefully won't be blocked on your school computers.

Hopefully they pique your students.

Courteosity.

Wow.

And there we have it.

Thank you.

I am a very good pun professional.

On that note, thanks for tuning in.

This has been the Tech Tools for Teachers podcast.

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The ideas and opinions expressed on this podcast and the Smart NWI website are those of the author, Shannon Martin, and not of her employer.

Prior to using any of the tools technologies discussed on this podcast, please consult with your employer regulations.

This podcast offers no guarantee that these tools will work for you as described, but we sure hope they do.

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Ship.