by Nina Drozd

Created on: May 01, 2010

In this age of computer technology and Artificial Intelligence, proper typing is very important not only as a business skill but is also needed in everyday life. How to improve your typing skills you ask? Well, in order to improve your skills to a recognizable standard, it's important to understand a proper method for typing. This can off course be done on your own but will probably take ten to twenty times more time and effort than trying to learn typing using typing programmes.

Afterall, this is the age of software and what better free software to use than Mavis Beacon!? This is a free and easily understandable program which can be downloaded onto your PC or laptop. The program can be used by the whole family as it has a functionality to provide different accounts for different family members. Mavis Beacon is not only very well structured and fun but also provides a goal for the user to complete. When setting up an account, user is asked to perform a test (this involves typing out a piece of text, so that the program can evaluate user's current typing skill), you can also select a goal typing speed and can see your progress throughout the course in a pie chart statistics diagram. But is it all work and no play? No, you'll be glad to know that the teaching course in Mavis Beacon involves some games every so often, starting from easy chameleon game and progressing to more difficult 'type racing' and 'shark' games. I have tried Mavis Beacon as well as some other typing programmes and can safely say that Mavis Beacon is the most efficient and user-friendly programme and makes learning easy and fun.

The learning is started with simple revision of finger position of individual letters. The user can see finger alignment in an interactive picture of virtual hands. This is very helpful as it provides for future typing without looking at the keyboard. The success of any operation and project though is persistence. Therefore, not even the best software can help you improve your typing skills unless you really put some time into typing process. I would advise to leave aside 15-20 minutes every day for Mavis Beacon learning. Do not think that you can learn typing in one day or even one week. Practice is the key in improvement of your typing skills so have patience and enjoy the typing!

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