[IAEP] Fwd: content for typing turtle

[Wade Brainerd]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wade Brainerd <wadetb at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 2:31 AM
Subject: content for typing turtle
To: educators at lists.laptop.org, localization at lists.laptop.org, Samuel
Klein <sj at laptop.org>


Hi all,

I am seeking educators / writers to develop content for Typing Turtle,
a kid-focused interactive touch typing training program for the XO
that is currently in the pre-Alpha stage.

We need to develop lesson material which teaches children how to type
correctly, and does so in an engaging and entertaining way.  This
includes more than just teaching which finger presses which key.  For
example, taking breaks and having good posture are also important.

Secondly, we need to collect snippets of public domain text to be used
for practice typing.  These will need to be of varying difficulty
levels and lengths.  Possible sources might be Wikipedia articles, or
Project Gutenberg.

If you are interested in helping with this project, please let me
know!  A good place to start would be researching educational
approaches to touch typing.  Download an evaluation of Mavis Beacon
Teaches Typing (the good old standard) from download.com, or create a
free account on typingweb.com.  The Typing Turtle activity user
interface is structured similarly to these programs.

I would like to initially develop content for at least English and
Spanish, though we could start with one and then translate to the
other.

Thanks in advance,

Wade Brainerd