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Educational: 5.0
Overall Design: 4.0
Ease of Use: 4.5
(4.0 = good, 4.5 = very good, 5.0 = excellent)
Take A Tour of All The Right Type
(Click below)
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Program Description Who Is This Program For
Why We Selected This Program Computer Requirements
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All The Right Type is a multilevel "learn to type" software program that will give you all the needed instruction, practice activity, and continuing performance feedback that will allow you to move from a beginner to a very skilled typist.
When you open the program, the four main activity areas you will see on the home page are The Learning Lab, The Practice Pavilion, The Skill Building and the Test Center.
You start off in the Learning Lab where you learn basic posture and "home key" position technique. (See right) The learning is structured in simple learning modules where you both learn and have a chance to practice what you have just learned, in manageable steps. The focus is on accuracy (not speed) and you get detailed scores on how you are doing, every step of the way.
Once a lesson is complete, you enter the "Practice Pavilion" where you set your own speed target (words per minute) and do drill exercises that build your familiarity and accuracy level with what you have just learned. The priority at this stage is key position familiarity and typing accuracy, not speed.
Then you go to the "Skills Building" where you are working with both words and simple sentences based on the keys that you are mastering. The practice now is focused on building your speed. You get % accuracy and "words per minute" scores after each exercise.
After every third lesson, you go to the "Test Center" where you can set a speed goal. You will also be measured on such items as proper spacing, use of the backspace key, typing accuracy as well as speed. At this point everything counts. Your moving target is your speed. If your accuracy falls off as you are attempting to build your speed, you can always go back to the "Practice Pavilion" to work on your accuracy with the specific keys that you are learning.
All the Right Type also has two major setting options. The first is that the exercises in the "Practice Pavilion" can be switched over to work in a game format that can be more engaging for the learner. The second is that instead of following the learning and practice sequence above, the program can be set so that the learner can freely move from one exercise or learning area to another. This can be useful if the learner wants to have the freedom to choose their own specific areas to work on.
All the Right Type can handle hundreds of different users of the program simultaneously and provides very detailed tracking and performance records in the "Records Center" both for the student and for the teacher, and in both a written or graphic (see bottom right) format
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Basic Ergonomics
Hand Position
Speed and Accuracy Tracking
Progress and Performance Reports
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All the Right Type is a solidly designed, straightforward multilevel educational software program that can be used by anyone over the age of nine or ten, either at home or at school. And now here comes a short speech. Good typing and general keyboarding skills are an essential skill for most in the coming generation. Most are going to spend a lifetime using computers as their primary means of producing written communication. The difference between being a 15 words per minute versus being a 50 words per minute typist over a lifetime is a staggering amount of time. Make sure that your kids are learning to type well now. End of speech.
All the Right Type does not have an engaging narrative, sound or "favorite characters" (like Typing with Timon and Phumba) and therefore this program is for the motivated learner who is not going to need any initial enticements to start using the program. If the initial motivation is there, you have everything you need in this program to learn the skills. What the program does do very well, is give you all the step by step learning and continuous feedback, that can really help sustain your motivation, once you get started.
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Once you understand how to work your way around the various activity areas, we found that All the Right Type was easy to use. This software program was designed by teachers and you can see the steps of the learning path do really build your skills in a realistic and achievable fashion. The record keeping - how well you did - gives you not only the important measures of word per minute and accuracy, but also shows you when you made errors and which finger(s) were the ones where you were making most of your errors. This is very helpful if you want to know which specific letters you are not yet getting every time. What we also liked about the learning path of the program is that it helps you develop your accuracy first before you start focusing on speed. Some other programs we have seen, introduce speed development too early in the process which can undermine the development of the foundation skill of being able to hit all the right letters in the right sequence.
If you are a teacher using this program with your students, All The Right Type has lots of setting choices that you can use to guide how specifically you want your students to use the program in their learning process. This can be really useful if you have students are at different skill levels. The performance record keeping is very detailed, so the teacher can track the progress and performance levels of large numbers of students very easily, both individually and as a group. This is a real time saver.
All The Right Type is currently being used in over 30,000 schools in North America. We also notice that this program works both on PC & Mac, which is a limitation of both Mavis Beacon and Typing Instructor which are good programs but are both PC only.
As a package, All the Right Type provides all the skill learning and practice opportunities you need to become a good keyboard operator.
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Pricing and Online Ordering
(or call toll free -1-800-250-9229 )
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Windows 95, 98, Me, NT 4, 2000 or XP, 32 MB RAM (64 MB recommended), 640 x 480 resolution display with 16-bit color (or better), CD-ROM drive (required for program installation only), 50MB of available hard-disk space Windows-compatible sound card (if sound is desired)
Mac: Power Mac with a 66 MHz processor (133 MHz or better recommended) Mac OS 8.6, 9.x, 10.2.x or up 16 MB free RAM 640 x 480 resolution display with thousands of colors (or better) CD-ROM drive (required for program installation only) 50MB of available hard-disk space
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