EdAlive Typing Tournament

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Typing Tournament v1

Typing Tournament equips children (and adults) with the typing skills essential for daily living. This flexible keyboarding package teaches beginners, strengthens the competent and challenges the advanced (and it's loads of fun!).

There are drill- and practice-incentives, things to collect, printable certificates and rewards at the end. It's a great way to master an essential real-world skill!

Games and fun exercises give beginner, competent and advanced typists practice to develop typing skills. Players can increase typing speed and accuracy at a pace that suits the individual.

Overview

In Typing Tournament, a fantastic typing adventure awaits those who dare enter the Medieval keyboard world! Carefully-crafted content is interwoven with an fun story, fresh 3D graphics and challenging games will equip all students (and adults) with the typing skills essential for daily living. Typing Tournament is a flexible keyboarding package teaches beginners, strengthens the competent and challenges the advanced.

Journey through 16 medieval lesson locations presented within 3 maps on your quest to rid the land of the typing tyranny of the Dark Typist! Each location introduces new keys and runs students through one core lesson, three drills, three games and a test. Students must pass the test before they can move onto the next quest.

Students can start their quest at the very beginning or jump directly to a more challenging location - depending on the skill level being developed. Students are also free to speed up their quest and move ahead at their own pace so they're not stuck on lessons that they've already mastered.

Key Features

The Quest

• 16 challenge areas across 3 maps - the Shire, the Village and the Castle - as students move towards a show-down with the Dark Typist
• Each lesson area contains
  • Core Lesson
  • 3 Drills
  • 3 Games
  • Area Test
• Students who complete all the Drills in the Tournament win a special bonus prize
• Students are free to progress at their own pace as long as they are able to pass the Area Test
• Each of the 3 games provides practice for the Area's Focus Keys as well as those covered in previous areas

Castle Siege: Your castle is being bombarded with words spelt with the keyboard letters you've learnt. Type each word correctly to stop it with a keg of gunpowder!

Powder Keg: A mischievous dragon has found your stock of gunpowder and is lighting fuses with his fiery breath. Hit the correct keys to aim your water bombs and put out the fuses before it's too late.

Dragon Chase: Type furiously! It's that dragon again and he's after you! Type your way through the passage of text to stay ahead of him and keep from getting a toasted

The Curriculum

• 16 separate sets of challenging, informative and entertaining lesson content
• Games, drills and tests fully integrated with the Focus Content for every lesson
• Lessons and drills combine keys in a variety of ways including Home Row paths, vertical keypaths and common English letter strings
• Step-by-step explanation and demo of all content such as Spaces, Capitals
• Color-coded keyboard to highlight finger patterns; animated demos for new keys; animated visual prompts in lessons and drills
• Drills that strengthen muscle memory and finger movement patterns
• Printable Typing Certificates to display user achievements
• Printable Test Results report to analyze user performance
• At any time, students can skip past any lesson they feel they've mastered, as long as they successfully pass the Area's Test.

Teacher & Administrator Tools

• Administrative Area for teachers to create and manage Classes
• Class and individual User Settings can be accessed and changed
• Individual student reporting provides detailed progress data
• Available in Network version for easy installation and management across School

Learning Objectives

Content within Each Lesson Area

Typing Tournament is designed for all ages and stages - any student from Grade 1 on up will benefit! Users can start exactly where they need to and progress at their own pace, regardless of whether they are a novice, a typing whiz or someone whose skills are just a little rusty.
Activities at each point along the quest targets the set of Focus Keys for each location. The Focus Keys of the 16 Lessons are as follows:

Focus Keys are taught and reinforced within each activity - Lesson, Drills, Games and the Test

Lesson
Learning to type can seem like hard work. The lessons in Tournament Typing are kept very simple: step-by-step pictures and animations, with minimal reading. Only four new keys are introduced each lesson. Kids progress at their own pace so they can skip ahead or slow down as they need.

Three Drills
The 3 styles of typing drill focus on keys introduced in the lesson and revising keys already mastered.
Drill 1 is a single line of content that you must copy by typing in the space below; Drill 2 has 4 lines of content also typed below and Drill 3 is 10 lines typed directly over the given content.

Three Games
The perfect practise ground for fun learning of Focus Keys. If you can reach the Target Score for the game, you are ready to try the Test to complete that location! Click here to see images.

The Test
Once players have taken the lesson, drilled the drills, and played the games they can take the test for that environment. If they reach their speed and accuracy goals, they progress to the next landmark on the map. If not, they simply continue to practise the drills and games and try again later. After completion of each test, players receive a certificate of achievement to applaud their chivalry!

Instructional Design

Typing Tournament is an integrated touch typing tool for any classroom

• Advanced Instructional Framework: Users cover the keyboard not once but twice. After a conventional Home Row progression, letters are combined in vertical keypaths to reinforce keyboard familiarity.
• Lesson Scope and Sequence: Each Lesson introduces a new set of Focus Keys. An animated demonstration of the location and fingering of the new keys is followed by an interactive exercise. Lesson Exercises use only the Focus Keys, while Drills, Games and Tests integrate them with previously learned material in realistic text-type environments.
• All components relate directly to material taught: All exercises, drills and games use content specifically linked to accompanying lessons. Even games are a key part of the instruction cycle.
• Multiple progressions framework: With this unique model students can keep advancing, even when complexity increases. Reset goals while working on new skills rather than slipping behind, getting bored or giving up.
• Substantial content: Students type from meaningful, informative and entertaining content.
• Progress Reports: Typing progress may be viewed for each environment. Along with overall speed and accuracy, a keyboard layout shows keys mastered and 'in progress', each with a percentage accuracy, so players (or their teachers) can see problem keys and choose appropriate drills and games.

Awards

"EXCELLENT" software certificate - FindMySoft.com

2007 BESSIE Award Winner - Best Multi-level Typing Software

2005 EDDIE Award Winner - Best Multi-level Typing Software

2005 The National Parenting Center Seal of Approval

Typing Tournament provides children with a fun environment to practice, drill and test their skill at touch typing. Parents liked the manner in which the student is challenged and were impressed with the results.

-- Review by The National Parenting Center, Spring 2005

2005 ATOM Award Winner - Best Instructional/Training Resource
2005 ATOM Awards Finalist - Best Multimedia Learning Reference
2005 ATOM Awards Finalist - Best Primary Education Resource

System Requirements

PC
Windows 98 or later (including XP/Vista), 233MHz Processor or faster, 800x600 capable screen.

Mac
OS X (PowerPC or Intel Mac) 10.3/10.4/10.5 or later, 300MHz Processor or faster, 800x600 capable screen.