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Around 8 years ago I taught myself to touch type, as it always seemed to take me ages to type out a letter or an email, and to honest I hated typing. It went something like this, look for the letter on the keyboard, pause, press the key, look for the letter, pause, press, and so on, it was a painful experience I can tell you.

With the help of some Typing tutor software that I bought from Amazon I got started, and after a few weeks became a very proficient typist. I even got a job because I could type.
Overtime, I noticed that my typing had become a bit sloppy, and needed improving, so I decided to brush up on my keyboard skills.
After doing a search on Google, I was quite surprised by the amount of online Typing Tutors that came up, and after trying some, realized just how poor some of them were. So over a few weeks I tested many of them, and have listed what I consider in my humble opinion to be the top three.

Typeonline was the most complete online typing tutor that was tested. It has a very good section on health and safety, which covers RSI, your sitting posture, and other topics, it’s worth taking a look before you get started.
The site layout is simple and very easy to navigate around, and whether you are a beginner or an advanced user, Typeonline has an abundance of activities and training for you.

If you are a beginner, then Typeonline will take you right from the very start, showing you which finger corresponds to which keys, and then lead you step by step through each lesson.
For advanced users there are many lessons to choose from, and each lesson has 10 exercises which become progressively harder. The exercises are selected from a drop-down box, and there are only about a dozen words in each exercise to complete, so they don’t take very long to finish.
With Typeonline you can find out your typing speed, your accuracy percentage, and also review your mistakes.
Although Typeonline has many lessons and exercises, I felt that the exercises could have been made a little bit more fun. Don’t get me wrong, overall I highly recommend Typeonline as your first choice, because its straightforward, simple to use, and if you just want to improve your typing, you can skip the early lessons.
Click here to get started.

Powertyping, has many exercises, tests, and games, but is not quite as comprehensive as Typeonline. However, I thoroughly enjoyed using this online tutor, but Typeonline has more practice lessons.
Just like Typeonline, whether you are a beginner or advanced user there is something here for you.

After a few clicks you will find the page for beginners which shows you how to get started with the keyboard, and also which finger goes with each key.
There are 13 exercises on Powertyping, covering everything from letters to numbers and symbols, and you can repeat the exercises over and over until your heart is content.
At the end of each exercise you are automatically showed your WPM (words per minute,) any errors you have made, and also how many words you typed, which I found very informative and helpful.
The best thing I liked about PowerTyping were the games, which were fun and are aimed at improving your typing skills and speed. The games have various levels of difficulty and even background music (which can be switched off.)
Overall Powertyping was fun, informative and if you just want to brush up on your typing skills the games are a great addition.

To get started on Powertyping click here.

Peters Online Typing Course is also excellent if you just want to improve your typing skills, or you are a beginner, as it will take you step by step through the lessons in a very clear and concise manner.
Peters Online typing course starts off with ‘Principles for Effective Learning,’ then goes on to ‘Typing Ergonomics’ followed by ‘Which fingers Go Where,’ eventually leading you on to the typing lessons.

Again it doesn’t offer as many exercises as TypeOnline, but there are 18 lessons in total, which should help anyone to become a competent typist, fluent with all the keys that really matter.

Overall this site is simple to use, and whether you just need to brush up on your typing skills, or move from two-finger typing to full-blown touch typing, then Peters online typing course will help you.

Click here to go to the website.

You will find that spending a few minutes everyday on one of these tutor websites will dramatically improve your typing skills, as I say to my little girl,”Pratice makes perfect.” Have fun.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 1:00 pm and is filed under PC Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.