Touch Typing, continued

Without MasterMind Typing, lack of means to test keyboard knowledge makes it customary to test typing speed instead. For the relevant population, inept typists, speed is a poor criterion because people can type 25 wpm or more without knowing the whole keyboard. 25 wpm is a common standard for irregular typists, whom computers have made preponderant.

Leaving the course at 25 wpm or whatever rate, without properly learning the keyboard, means that one never will type better. In contrast, knowing the keyboard means that speed will continue to improve with any kind of practice, such as normal work. So speed is a poor criterion if less than a value that one surely must know the keyboard to attain, probably 60 wpm or more. Still, MasterMind Typing in the future will add speed tests, to satisfy students' curiosity and help employers to test applicants. The advanced, speed-building lessons will strengthen too.

Economics

Please consider the convertibility of time and money as to typing. Using computers awkwardly, non-typists waste more than the cost of training by any method. Compared to other programs, MasterMind Typing saves at least twenty hours per trainee, for example, $200 per trainee valued at $10/hour. So MasterMind Typing pays for itself instantly. Savings multiply with successive trainees and forever because of their productivity gain.

Notes for Teachers

This is about lesson administration for a group of students, which is simple because MasterMind software makes mastery intrinsic. The appended, printable form enables students to report their progress. MasterMind Typing works well for students of all ages. We do not advise typing instruction before third grade (age 8) unless the students have small keyboards to fit their hands.

Because MasterMind teaches much faster than ordinary methods, including other computer programs, typing as a course in itself is obsolete. MasterMind Typing should be a minor part of another course, for example, a course in writing or computer skills.

MasterMind Typing gives lessons of different kinds in three phases. Completion of Phase 1 makes the student a touch typist, albeit a slow one. Thereafter, any practice will improve speed; and Phases 2 and 3 especially do so. Phase 2 efficiently focuses on common sequences of characters. Phase 3 is optional literature that the student memorizes by typing. Please study the product documentation and monitor students' compliance with prescribed procedures. If students don't understand fully the written instructions, they need special help at the start of each phase. The other, probable occasion for help is the introduction of a shifted character in the second lesson of Phase 1.

MasterMind lessons need no grading. A lesson automatically continues until the student masters it. The only record necessary is to show what lessons the student has done. In Phases 2 and 3, the speed setting also belongs in the record as part of the lesson description. Teachers should prescribe the speed goal according to the role of typing in the students' other work. [more]

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