Free Online Keyboarding Practice & Games

Although many classrooms use computer based keyboarding software such as “Typing Tutor,” there are a number of great free online keyboarding applications. One of the most comprehensive and useful sites is Sense-Lang.org. Use this site to get a baseline keyboarding test, work your way through their graduated tutorials, or play some keyboarding games.

The Tutorials section allows you to take a series of lessons. These lessons will slowly introduce new letter keystrokes, similar to the method used in class. The tutorial section will also allow you to use your own plain text file for practice text. A variety of testing features will help you not only get a baseline keyboarding score, but will help you track your progress along the way.

The Certifications section will let you download an “official” keyboarding test, allowing you to print out a certificate of keyboarding skill…useful maybe for employers.

The teacher section will let you create, import, and track your class list of students. A great feature, although I have not fully tested this feature yet, I will provide updates as the year progresses.

Bonus: In class we use “SpeedSkins” keyboard covers to help encourage student to not look at the keys while typing. These SpeedSkins can be purchased online for around $9. We get them from Sunburst but they can be found by searching for “speedskin typing.”

Try out Sense-Lang, let us know what you think in the comments section below. You can also suggest other good keyboarding resources you may know of.