Main Menu

Use the up, down and enter keys to navigate the Main Menu. Pressing Space on any option will provide a brief description of what that menu option is all about. The Typio main menu is the central hub which consists of options which do the following:

• Progress Mode: Guided instruction through the entire keyboard. Each key is introduced with a tutorial phase.
• Lesson Practice: Lesson practice is similar to the lesson phase of Progress Mode, however, there is no tutorial phase. Students can choose any one of the included Typio lessons or choose a custom lesson sent to them from the Teacher Dashboard.
• Explore Mode: Explore mode allows students to press whichever key they wish, with that key being visually and audibly presented to them.
• Mini Review: Mini Review is a series of 10 random words to be typed based on the most recently learned key.
• Free Type: Free Type allows students to type without prompting. At the end of the time period, or by pressing Escape, the student is provided with their typing score.
• Results: This is where students can check their scores and current place in Progress Mode.
• Typing Pet: The Typing Pet is the game area of Typio Online. Students can train, feed, play or check their pet.
• Settings: The settings screen is where students can customize their Typio Online experience.
• Logout: Choose this option when the student is done with their current Typio Online session. Choosing this option ensures their data is correctly saved.

Typing Lessons:

During typing lessons, the student is visually and audibly presented with various prompts to type. After typing each prompt, the student can press Space to move on to the next prompt. Once all prompts have been typed, the student is given scores on their Words Per Minute (WPM), Accuracy and Combo (highest number of keys correct in a row without making a mistake), in addition to a short coaching.

The student’s visual and audible settings will alter how the information is presented during typing lessons. Colors, text sizes, voice, keypress and sound effects will all match the student’s customized settings. If Short Lessons is enabled, the lessons will be limited to 30 typing prompts. If the student is accessing a typing lesson from the Typing Pet Training menu, their typing pet will be present.

Controls

• Read current prompt: Control
• Read how many prompts remain: Press Control twice quickly
• Exit typing lesson: Escape

Progress Mode

Whether chosen from the Main Menu or the Typing Pet Training menu, Progress Mode is the primary way of utilizing Typio Online. Each key on the keyboard will be presented to the student with a short tutorial on how to find the current key. During the tutorial phase will have an opportunity to explore they keyboard until they find the correct key. Once they have found the key successfully, they will be taken to the typing lesson focusing on that key. After each lesson’s score is shared, Progress Mode continues on to the next lesson.

As lessons are completed in Progress Mode, other components of Typio Online are updated. Mini Review and various Typing Pet games will focus on the most recently learned key in Progress Mode. So in order for additional keys to be included in those modes, the student must first have completed the Progress Mode lesson for that key. It does not matter if the student completes the lesson in either regular Progress Mode or as part of the Typing Pet training.

Free Type

Free Type allows students to type without prompting. This is a great way to test their real-world typing skills. The Free Type Time setting will change how many minutes the student has to type. A lesson can be completed before the time is up by pressing the escape key to exit. Students are then presented with scores for their WPM, Accuracy and Character (total characters typed). Since students could be typing anything, their Accuracy score is an approximation while using Free Type mode. The text they typed is given a simple spellcheck and the results are returned. Grammatical concerns, uncommon words and spacing can all affect the accuracy score, so take it with a grain of salt in this mode.

Typing Pet

This is where Typio Online gets fun! The Typing Pet reinforces typing by providing an engaging incentive to practicing. Each student’s typing pet is customized by their actions and can be their companion as they type. Typing Pet contains the following menu options:

• Train: This is where students practice their typing with their pet. Progress, Practice, Mini and Custom training all operate the same as if they were chosen from the main menu. The difference is the Typing Pet voices the keys and is visually present on screen as the student types. At the end of the training, the student is awarded coins which they can spend in the other Typing Pet modes.
• Feed: Typing Pets can be customized through feeding. Each food item costs a different amount of coins and changes a difference aspect of the Typing Pet. For example, repeatedly feeding the pet Protein Shakes will lower it’s voice, while Hot Tea will raise the pitch. Pressing Space on any given food item will provide a description of what it does.
• Play: Various games are included in this mode. Some games focus on recently learned keys, while others utilize the entire keyboard freely.
• Check: If a student checks their pet, they are provided with an audible and visual description, in addition to a few fun facts about the pet. Pressing Space after the description has completed will provide additional audible info on the pet.
• Exit: Well, it should be pretty obvious what this option does.

Controls

• Description of current menu option: Space
• Read how many coins the student has: Control
• Exit: Escape

Settings

Customizing Typio Online to meet your student’s preferences and needs is a big deal. This is where it’s done. These settings are automatically loaded each time the student logs in to Typio Online.

• Font Size: Small, Medium or Large
• Font Style: Regular, Serif, Condensed, Monospaced
• Font Color: Changes text color throughout the program
• BG Color: Changes background color throughout the program
• Divider Color: Changes the accessory color throughout the program
• Voice: Changes the voice used throughout the program. This option includes voices contained on the current machine. The options may change when the user logs in from a different machine.
• Voice Rate: Changes how fast the voice speaks
• Voice Pitch: Raises or lowers the pitch of the voice
• Keypress: This is the sound played when a key is typed during a lesson. ‘Read’ simply verbalizes the key. ‘Pop’ and ‘Click’ make a simple sound, while ‘Theme’ plays a sound that correlates with the current SFX theme.
• SFX: These are the sounds played during typing lessons. Sounds are played after each prompt, when a typo is pressed, at the end of the lesson and while meters fill during the score screen. Pick a good one!
• Highlight: This toggles if the prompt text is highlighted after each key is typed. If the Visual Keyboard option is enabled, Highlight is automatically turned on.
• Visual Keyboard: This displays a visual keyboard on the lower half of the screen during typing lessons. As the student types, they keys they press are lit up.
• WPM Goal: This is the minimum Words Per Minute score the student must reach in order to move on to the next lesson.
• Smart WPM: Here’s the deal, counting down the WPM timer while visually impaired students are visually or audible making out the current typing prompt isn’t really fair. Smart WPM aims to fix that. When turned on, the WPM timer is paused while Typio Online is reading the current prompt. The timer starts again as soon as the student presses a key. If they student presses Control to hear the remaining prompt to type, the time is again paused until they press another key. When disabled, the WPM score continually counts down. General classroom students may need this setting turned off, while visually impaired students may need this setting turned on. The choice is yours.
• Short Lessons: Turning this on ensures each typing lesson is not more than 30 prompts.
• Free Type Time: This is the number of minutes students are given during Free Type Mode.

Creating Custom Lessons

Students can be sent custom lessons from the optional Teacher Dashboard. Please read the dedicated article for that topic.