The 5 Best Typing Software Websites

The 5 Best Typing Software Websites

Keyboarding has been a necessary skill for school, business, and personal life for the past two decades. For anyone who wishes to learn the basics or simply touch up on existing skills, these websites provides the tools to improve typing speed and accuracy. The following are reviews of the best typing software websites online today.

TypingWeb.com

As one of the more popular web based keyboarding programs, TypingWeb.com offers dozens of free lessons. For $9.99, users can upgrade their accounts to remove advertisements and unlock additional high level assignments including exercises targeting each finger to help students progress even faster.
Basic lessons start with the home row and quickly progress to the entire alphabet, eventually encompassing the entire keyboard. Users can also practice prose typing by copying passages from popular literature like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Romeo & Juliet, and they can even take a glimpse at the Dvorak keyboard layout.
TypingWeb.com comes with plenty of extra features to help students and teachers alike. Since the program is free, teachers can use the website instead of buying expensive typing software for use in the classroom. TypingWeb.com's teacher portal provides tools to keep track of students' progress including test grades. Students can have fun while learning with more then 10 flash games that run in the web browser.

Sense-Lang.org

With as many features as TypingWeb.com, Sense-Lang.org offers a comparable number of tools, but the site itself appears less professional as if it were designed a decade ago. Sense-Lang.org also provides a teacher portal that provides the same functionality with student progress tracking, and students can access numerous tutorials, speed tests, and games to learn how to type.

TypeOnline.co.uk

With a smaller selection of typing lessons, no games, and no teacher portal, TypeOnline.co.uk provides only a rudimentary lesson plan. For each lesson, words pop up one or two at a time, and when a user must press the space bar, the actual word "space" appears. TypeOnline.co.uk does teach users how to type from the home row to the entire keyboard, but it's far more confusing than TypingWeb.com's streamlined lessons.

GoodTyping.com

While also free, GoodTyping.com requires users to sign up for an account before they begin accessing more than two dozen step-by-step lessons. Unfortunately, the site does not provide extra features such as games to help students learn, but anyone including nonmembers can access the typing speed test at the bottom of the home page. GoodTyping.com also supports 23 keyboard layouts while most sites only support the traditional QWERTY keyboard.

10FastFingers.com

To test progress, users of the other sites can visit 10FastFingers.com and grade their performance. With 41 languages to choose from, typists from countries as diverse as China, Turkey, and Iceland can measure their speed and accuracy.

Review of 5 Typing Tutorial Websites

The following is a review of 5 typing tutorial websites.  This review is based on the quality and features of typing instruction and ease of use of the website. 

    1. Typingweb.com – Typing Web is probably the most well known site for typing tutorials. The site is 100% web based and free for both those learning how to type (students of all ages and levels) and teachers. For teachers, typingweb.com allows complete student management, tracking, and reporting.  For those learning or improving upon their typing skills, there are a variety of free typing games, lessons, and tests that make learning how to type fun and engaging. For the overall typing tutorial quality, ease of use and engagement factor, I give this site a 9 out of 10.

Typingweb.com sample lesson

Typingweb.com sample games

                                        

    2. Powertyping.com – When you navigate to the web page it is almost complete confusion from that point on. The site isn't clearly designed with links in awkward places and navigation difficult to accomplish. The design of the site is lackluster with no intriguing graphic or web design quality to speak of at all. The site tries to explain in text how to improve typing, hand placement, and other aspects without actually showing you or teaching you how to do so. You can practice typing to “improve”, but the practice material has to be supplied by you. There is a always a typing test that is supposed to accurately measure speed and precision, which it failed to do when put to the test. This site gets a 2 out of 10 for so many reasons.

Powertyping.com home page

    3. Alfatyping.com –  I would say Alfa's strong suit would be the “Games” section on it's site. There are many games such as “Earth Typing Defense” and “Sea Typing” that refine your typing skills while making it fun and entertaining. Alfa Typing also offers tests that can give you an idea of where you stand with your typing in both speed and accuracy. Certifications are another key factor of Alfa Typing, allowing the user to get certified as a “Professional Touch Typist” after completing the required lessons and tests. The overall layout of the site is well designed, easy to navigate, and because of this and the entertainment factors of this site, I give it a 6 out of 10.

    4. Rapidtyping.com – Rapid typing is a typing tutorial software designed for a very young demographic. It has typing games, tutor, and tests, however, you have to download the software to use it.  The software is well designed and easy to use, however, again, you must download the software. Because of this, the site gets a 5 out of 10.

RapidTyping.com - download

    5. Typeonline.co.uk  – This is an oddball of the group, but I thought it was worth mentioning solely for it's educational effect. The site has a bland layout, with no real look to it at all. There are no typing games, however, what Type Online lacks in graphics and entertainment, it makes up for in substance. The site has just 10 lessons, all with multiple practice examples to teach you the basics and some intermediate level typing. No, it's not the most advanced site, but the few lessons on there are written quite well and for this I give Type Online a 5 out of 10 overall.

Typeonline Speed Test

Review of 7 Free Online Typing Software

This review is intended for teachers or students looking for the best options for free online typing software to help teach typing and keyboarding. All of these sites are free to use and do not require any downloads as they are all hosted and used online. The review lists the sites in descending order (best first).

TypingWeb.com and  Sense-lang.org are the two listed that offer teacher management features, allowing teachers to set up accounts and manage their student's typing progress through reporting and student management features.

TypingWeb.com. Rating: 9 
This site does a great job in combining both a teacher and student typing teaching platform. Although this site is free to use, it is very comparable to any paid typing teaching software on the market. Teachers can create a teacher's account, add their students, and see their students progress through advanced and easy-to-use reporting features. The site features typing lessons, tests, and constantly updated games and modern features such as iPad compatibility. The site gets a 9.

Goodtyping.com. Rating: 7 
This site is intended for those looking to learn how to type. It does not offer any teacher management features. What catches the eye right away is that this site will teach you to type in 6 different languages being, English, Spanish, Italian, German, French and Portuguese. It is very easy to use with links that are clear to understand the instructions. There are no games, however there are 23 different typing keyboards to choose from with 27 different typing lessons to also choose. It's easy to take the typing test and get your results. The site is  simple to use, however there are distracting advertising links surrounding the typing test. This site gets a rating of 7.

Typeracer.com. Rating: 6 
The site is exactly what it's name states it is: This site allows you to race type others online. It's entertaining in that it actually has you type in quotes from movies, books, and songs. You can compare yourself to other typers and view scoring in competitive order. The site offers type racing and does it well, however, it does not offer much else, giving it a rating of 6.

Typeonline.co.uk. Rating: 5 
TypingOnline.co.uk, a UK based site, is very simple to understand and has many perks, although it is a very very basic designed website. This site is intended for those looking to learn how to type. It does not offer any teacher management features.  It’s very conservative. A 13 year old will be able to understand the site easily, however, aside from its ease of navigation, the site only offers a few types of lessons. Students may find it less entertaining and move on quickly. What I do like the most about typeonline is, it gives a practice typing option and also 4 different typing lessons with each lesson being more difficult than the previous. It gives a speed typing test and it gives you an email option to forward the website to a friend. Since it is easy to use, the site receives a 5.

Keybr.com. Rating: 4 
The pros on this site are, the colorful typing keyboard, and a section that allows other users to show what they've scored on the typing tests, giving it a sort of social media element. It lists the highest to the lowest scores. The site gives you tips on being able to type faster, however, you would be able to find that all the info that it gives searching online. The site is very simple to use, with only four options to choose from:Games, How To Type, High Scores and Extras. I like the ease of maneuvering through the site and that it’s easy to read. It's simple and basic. I give this site a rating of 4.

Sense-lang.org. Rating: 4 
This typing software site offers a variety of online typing tutorials, products, games, and offers both a student and teaching platform. However, the site is not easy to use and has too many distracting advertisements all over the website. The site features Tutorials, Products, Games, About Us, Contact Us. The navigation seems to be scattered.  There is a lot to learn and benefit from the website, however, the site has not been thought through well with a design not optimal for those with shorter attention spans, like kids learning how to type. Rates at 4.

Powertyping.com. Rating: 3 
This site is intended for those looking to learn how to type. It does not offer any teacher management features. This site is cute in a weird quirky way, although it probably has not been updated in several years. It has 7 links for you to click on: Querty, Dvorak, Word, an Octopus, Alpha Rain, an Eyeball, and a barracuda fish with blood dripping from it’s mouth. The octopus, barracuda and the eyeball are very simple typing games. Although the site does offer some lessons of value, it is not true typing tutorial website. With its limited typing tutorial features and confusing site navigation, the site gets a rating of 3.