Greetings Keyboard Mastery Keyboarding Students! Teacher: Mrs. Wright You do NOT have to turn anything in I can see your scores and grades online in my Teacher Manager. Read this syllabus carefully! Step One - Watch the Short Correct Technique Video To be an excellent typist, you need to have good techniques: Launch the internet Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox enter www.keyboardingonline.com in the URL, and press Enter key. You can also get to it through my blog or Edmodo. Rest your pointer on the STUDENT TOOLS link, and click on Video Tutorials Scroll down to select The Six S.E.C.R.E.T Correct Keyboarding Techniques. After starting it, it continues automatically you do not need to press the mouse button. Press ESC key when finished. Step Two If you need to practice at home, and are using a PC, be sure you have Java plug-in loaded on your home computer; follow these directions to load the Java plug-in. The Java plug-in is already in the Operating System of most MACs; however, MACs 10.7 or higher need to load the Java plug-in from MAC Software Update. Internet courses use Java applets and need the Java plug-in. The way to know if you are having a Java problem: When you click to download your course, nothing happens it doesn t download. To verify that you have the Java plug-in installed correctly: (The Internet is always changing the way sites look but this is the procedure.) 1. Enter www.java.com in the address bar of your Internet browser. Press the Enter key. 2. Click on the Do I have Java? button. 1
3. Follow the prompts. Any version of Java will almost always work. You don t have to download the latest version it is up to you. The main thing is to have a version of the Java plug-in on your computer. If you don t have it, click the Download Java Now button, and follow the prompts. 4. Close and re-open your web browser (i.e. either Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer) after installing the Java Plug-in. a. Go to www.keyboardingonline.com. Press Enter key. b. Click red LOGIN NOW button in upper right corner of window. c. Enter the student login given to you by your instructor on both lines (School Login and School Password). Press Enter. SCHOOL LOGIN: jyeates SCHOOL PASSWORD: jyeates d. Click on the link to your course. After getting to the page that says Please wait Program is downloading, wait a few moments and you should be able to enter your course. This is what you will see: 2
5. NOTE: A real good browser is Mozilla. If you have browser trouble, try downloading and installing the Mozilla FireFox web browser from www.mozilla.org. Mozilla FireFox is FREE. There are never any special settings to look at, has automatic pop up-ad blocking and is a very secure web browser. It does not have all of the security vulnerabilities often found in some popular web browsers. We use it at Ellsworth Publishing Co. for most of our web browsing needs. Step Three Follow along on your computer as you read these step-by-step directions. They will give you a demo of your course. (They are for the On-Screen version, but easily adapted to the Textbook Version.) 1. Click Open Student Data File. 2. Select your class. 3. Select your name. 4. Click Open at the bottom. Verify ID or Password: Enter the Individual Password given by your teacher (which you can change later to a password of your choosing). Then click OK. (This is not the same as the login/password.) Your Password is your Student ID number. 3
Learning about the Main Menu: User Info Click on User Info and enter your e-mail address and phone number. These will appear on the class report for the instructor. You can change your individual password from the one given by your instructor to a personal password if you wish. (The instructor may lock the password so it can t be changed.) When through, click OK. Setup Click on Setup. Check the course standards set by your teacher by clicking on the various tabs. You cannot change anything in the Setup. Notice what speed and accuracy is required for an A grade. In the last tab (Next Step tab), click the Finish button. Introduction Click on Introduction and go through each step. After the last step, click on the red close button [x]. Lessons Menu o Lesson 1 Home Row is highlighted in the menu on the left. Ln1, or Line 1, shows on the first tab indicating your first drill. Before you begin, move the Adjust Font slide (lower right) to the right to make the letters larger. The timer will begin when you press the first key. On the one-liners, when you get to the end and have more time, don t space just press the Enter key and start over. KEEP TYPING UNTIL THE TIMER STOPS YOU! If you know you made a mistake and want to start over without waiting for it to time out, click on the Timer button and it will reset. When new keys are presented, the directions are in blue font color, but if you click on the Show Reach button, the new key reaches will blink on your mini keyboard screen. The color of the blinking key shows which finger depresses the new key. 4
NOTES: 1) Your teacher may have turned off the timing view so you can t see what you have typed until the timing is over. This is designed to encourage you to keep your eyes on the copy do NOT look at your fingers or the keys! 2) Your teacher may have turned on a 2-second timeout feature if you pause more than 2 seconds, your timing will abort and you will have to start over. Again, this is designed to encourage you to keep your eyes on the copy. If you look at the keyboard to hunt and peck, you won t be able to find your way back to continue typing in less than 2 seconds and your practice timing will abort. Real typing skill is by touch, without looking at the keys or your fingers. 3) Your teacher may have set a minimum wpm. If your practice timing meets the errors allowed and doesn t record, your timing probably didn t meet the minimum wpm. Keep practicing. o Practice Lines 1-4 until you reach your goal for an A grade. Take the drill as many times as necessary to reach your goal. The best three speeds of all taken will automatically record that meet the accuracy rate. After each timing, at the bottom, it will ask you if you want to take the timing again. Click on Yes to take the timing again, NO to automatically advance to the next lesson. (You could also just click on the next Line tab to continue.) Experienced Keyboarding Students--Before going very far, find out what your current skill level is. Take the Course Entry timing until you have a score recorded (you have to meet the accuracy standard set by the teacher). Take the Course Exit timing when you complete all the assigned lessons. Your improvement will show on the Final Grade Report. After achieving several Line scores, click the red Close button [x] on the timing window to go back to the Main Menu and see your scores in the Progress Report. Progress Reports Click on the Progress Reports icon on the Main Menu to see all recorded scores. Click the close button [x] to exit. Grade Reports On the Grade Reports icon you have two choices: Current. To check your current (mid-term grade), click on the Grade Reports icon. It will show you your average score for all completed lessons so you can compare it to the grading scale. Click the red close button to exit. Final. To check your final grade, be sure the Grade Reports icon shows Final instead of Current. With the Final showing, click the Grade Reports icon. A final grade will appear only after all assigned lessons are completed. IMPORTANT: If you want to raise your grade, go back to your Progress Report and note which scores are lower than your goal. Practice to raise any lower scores higher scores on the Progress Report can raise your final grade. 5
HOW TO SEND A MESSAGE TO YOUR TEACHER Click on the Message Center icon. Click on Compose Message, Create your Message, and click the Send button: END A SESSION PROPERLY Before exiting the program and/or the Internet, be sure to click Save and Close File on the menu page! Every 12 minutes your scores automatically go back to the servers at Ellsworth Publishing Company you won t even see them go. After your scores have automatically saved, assume that you practiced for 5 or 10 minutes and need to exit/leave the session. If you just exit the Internet and leave you could lose a few minutes of practice because the next 12-minute cycle has not arrived yet. Always end a session by clicking the Save and Close File button to manually send the last few minutes of practice back to Ellsworth s servers. Last Instructions Be sure to read the instructions carefully. Be sure to do your work online so I can see it. Remember: You do NOT have to turn anything in I can see your scores and grades online in my Teacher Manager. You can also watch our video tutorials that go over these instructions step by step at: http://www.keyboardingonline.com/authorsdemo.php Good luck. Let me know if you have any questions! Mrs. Wright 6