The Direct Reach method eliminates the many hours of boring nonsense drills that cause faulty mind-mapping. The awkward keystrokes are eliminated, decreasing learning time and reducing risk of injury.
The Direct Reach method is used by expert typists, so why not learn that method from the start?
There are also very important ergonomic reasons.
For more information see: Direct Reach vs Home Keys
META Innovation (“META”) hereby undertakes to not disclose any information about its customers, or others who contact META, to other parties without their express permission by email, fax or letter.
Such information received by META will be used only for:
- Keeping the respondent informed of upgrades or new products
- Research and development of eText products.
META agrees to permanently remove any information about a customer or other person who has contacted META on receipt of an email or other correspondence requesting such deletion and removal.
META will not store credit card details provided to it, with the exception of the last four digits for reference purposes.
The eText Method has been designed to decrease the risk of a keyboard user acquiring repetitive strain injury in three ways: Continue reading “How using typeSmart reduces the risk of injury” »
The eText Method is based on practical principles of modern learning psychology. You do not have to know about the Method to use the Software, but you may find it interesting, especially if you intend to be a typeSmart Facilitator, teacher or human resources professional.
The eText Method implemented by typeSmart uses these Accelerated Learning principles:
- Encourages people to be in a relaxed, but focused state of mind.
- Uses a combination of visual, auditory and physical presentation.
- Encourages people to use the full range of their individual learning strengths and thinking skills.
The principles are applied in the following ways.
Anchoring and the Space Bar
TypeSmart uses the space bar for anchoring. The space bar is the perfect anchor for the mind and hands, as:
_spaces_are_between_nearly_every_word
Using the spacebar as an anchor is similar to finding middle-C on the piano, except that the space bar is the largest and easiest key to find on the computer keyboard!
The eText Method does not use the Home Keys Technique of traditional typing.
Mind-mapping and Key-Finger Groups
Most of us store and retrieve information by networks of inter-linking ideas. This is known as ‘mind-mapping’.
The TypeSmart ‘mind-map’ starts with making a clear distinction between left and right hands. Each hand is then divided into four groups, one for each finger. these are the Key Finger Groups.
You do not need to memorise these Groups as you progressively learn these in using the TypeSmart software.
Normal Syllables and Words
TypeSmart uses only the normal combinations of characters in our language to teach you keyboard skills, with a few minor exceptions. These comprise syllables and words, called ‘Text Units’ in the eText Method. Some typical text units are:
| _fr | _the | pic ture | as | _er | to fill up |
Chunking
Chunking is probably the most widely used memory process of the mind. For example, we memorise phone numbers in chunks such as 408-541-6100. It is also the preferred method of teaching languages.
The eText Method starts with chunking characters into short syllables, many of which are common phonemes (the sounds which make up spoken language), then into larger groups, then short, medium and long words, then phrases and clauses, and finally sentences.
Progressive Learning
The eText Method consolidates new skills at the same time as progressively transferring these to further learning. Learning syllables helps you learn words which in turn helps you learn phrases, then clauses and sentences.
The result is that your hands start responding to your thoughts automatically, so that text creation flows to match your thinking, in a similar way to how handwriting does.
Positive Reinforcement
The eText Method acknowledges your success only with positive feedback. It ignores your mistakes and allows you to try again.
This contrasts with traditional typing tutorial software that ‘beeps’ when you do not succeed, and displays all your mistakes on the computer screen. These negative audio and visual responses raise your performance anxiety and incorrectly imprint the mistake in your mind confusing the mind-mapping.
Positive reinforcement is obviously a much more efficient learning strategy and avoids faulty imprinting which then has to be erased or ‘overwritten’.
Visual and Euphonic Feedback
The eText Method uses modern computer technology to provide both visual and audio feedback. When correctly keyed, the key on the screen image highlights, your correct text appears on the screen and the Software speaks it!
Drawing Your Attention to the Screen
The eText Method allows you to start by looking at your hands and the keyboard, and is designed to progressively draw your attention up to the screen as you progress.
Relaxed Attention
The eText Method is designed to maximize relaxed attention and to minimize performance anxiety to create an environment conducive to learning.
It does this by avoiding any negative feedback, creating a ‘trial and success’ rather than a ‘trial and error’ mindset and by focusing on overall creativity rather than keystroke performance in terms of speed and accuracy. There is also some fun along the way.
Psychomotor Learning Strategy
Creating text on a computer is a psychomotor skill, similar to learning the piano, driving or skiing. The TypeSmart learning path goes through progressive stages for the most effective learning of psychomotor skills.
Conscious learning. The learner pays attention to understand the finger actions required and the correct keying of character groups.
Trials. The learner consciously imitates the finger actions required and subsequently succeeds or repeats the trial.
Refinement and practice. The learner improves and practices the finger actions to master the Key-Finger Groups.
Automatic performance. The learner is able to create text without conscious attention in the same way competent drivers use a car.
Following this strategy correctly means that there is no need to override faulty cognitive imprinting, as happens with traditional methods.
Together with the relaxed attention principle, the strategy should also lessen the possibility of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) by minimizing stressful imperfect coordination (providing that the correct posture and habits are used).
Motivation
The eText Method respects you as an adult. We do require you to complete the Befriending the Keyboard Module, and the TypeSmart Software presents those Lessons and Sessions in order the first time.
Beyond that you are free to choose your own learning program. You are not forced to do prescribed lessons whether you need them or not. This encourages you to take responsibility for your learning and to be self-motivated.
In addition to the basic install, the typeSmart CD includes:
- Editions for both Windows and Mac
- System extensions, as applicable to your operating system
- Enhanced audio: introductory blocks of speech in recorded audio, rather than synthesized speech for group instruction or presentations
- Choice of American or British speech feedback
- The eText User Guide manual in Acrobat PDF format.
Part I of the eText typeSmart User Guide is a handy reference, and Part II provides background information on the learning psychology of the eText Method.
December 8, 2004
Today the lawyer of a competitor wrote to us objecting to the content of our typing tutor comparison and other statements made on our website and threatening legal action. Their lawyer claims our website “contains disparaging references to our client’s product” and we are “attacking the substantial reputation of our clients and its products”. They also contend that the website has comments that are “completely unauthorised, untrue, have no verifiable basis in fact, and are misleading and deceptive to consumers who may read and rely on such comments”.
We categorically deny their allegations and assert that these are intimidation tactics that should be reported to the appropriate competition and trade practice authorities. No one else has done the comparison, so we had to. They are at liberty to do theirs — it would be welcomed. They are at liberty to publish the reseach they have done to support their product design and protect their reputation.
A response to their allegations is being prepared. Copies of relevant correspondence will be posted on this site without fear or favor. Watch this space! However, out of courtesy but not admission, META Innovation has masked the three references to this product on the one page of the website (product review page and linked downloadable PDF file) and we will refrain from making any specific reference to the client or their product until this matter is concluded. In the meantime, if you have any queries about this matter, you can contact typesmart or the lawyers for the competitor, details as follows:
David Zwi
Cowley Hearn Lawyers
10/60 Miller Street, North Sydney, NSW, 2060, Australia.
+61 2 9956 2100
fax +61 2 9959 3614
dzwi@cowleyhearne.com.au
typeSmart is the only typing tutor that uses the modern psychology of learning in its program, such as total positive reinforcement, and psycho-motor learning principles. It is also the only typing tutor that teaches the Direct Reach method that expert typists use, rather than the out-dated Home Row method.
Methods that were fine for typewriters with their steep keyboards are still used by most typing tutors, even though the equipment has changed. The Home Row method leads to awkward keystrokes, and thus may be a contributor to keyboard-related injuries, such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
Leonard West was a prominent researcher and expert on typing teaching methods.
Nonsense drills
Nonsense drills were used to teach the individual keystrokes for copy-typing on mechanical typewriters with high precision in the traditional typing method and again have been slavishly applied to the modern computer keyboard.
Combinations of characters such as ‘frf’ and ‘juj’ used in conventional typing tutorial software are not part of our language and imprint ‘junk chunks’ in the mind that need to be erased or ‘over-written’ before learning to type real words, such as ‘from’, for example.
Leonard West identified the problem of these nonsense exercises and recommended the minimal use of these in typing teaching methods (West, 1983). Because of his dependency on the Home Keys Technique, he was unable to eliminate these from his own teaching method.
TypeSmart teaches only the phonemes and syllables of our language and provides progression onto short, long words and phrases, etc. and employs the Direct Reach method, which helps typists to easily find any key.
West retired not long after his book was published. We believe that if he had continued his research he would have developed the eText method before us, as the next two sections suggest.
Direct Reach
Our close observations of high-speed typists (100 wpm or more) indicated that they do not reach out from the Home Keys and return while typing at high speed. Instead they have instinctively learned the Key-Finger Groups as a psychomotor skill (like driving or playing sport). They sometimes rested their hands on the Home Keys when not typing, but as just a habit.
The advantage of direct reaching was confirmed by the the prominent typing researcher Dr Leonard West in the 1970s and 80s. He recommended: “direct reaching for the keys will happen automatically. Do not discourage direct reaching for the keys; do not insist on a return to the home keys after each stroke” (West, 1983, page 69).
Thus, West is advising that typists have to drop the Home Keys Technique in order to become expert, fixation on these being an impediment to high-speed typing.
Expert typists do not waste time going to the Home Keys. They type like a concert pianist plays. Even though they invariably started with learning the Home Keys, they have let them go and correctly learned the Key-Finger Groups after hours of practice or years of experience. Out of habit they may rest their hands on the Home Keys when about to start or when not actually typing, but once they begin typing the Home Keys Technique becomes superfluous.
By comparison, the eText Method encourages direct reaching on the flatter and more compact computer keyboard right from the beginning. We disagree with West’s suggestion that direct reaching happens “automatically” — our research indicates it takes many hours (in excess of 20) of training and practice to break the Home Keys reach-and-return habit devoloped by conventional touch typing methods.
Typewriting rhythm
Easy keystrokes speed up the flow and awkward keystrokes slow it down.
The Home Keys Technique requires the mastering of many awkward finger-keystroke techniques resulting from keeping, or trying to keep fingers in contact with the Home Keys. This means that any real flow to text creation is difficult.
This is consistent with the research done on type-writing rhythm reviewed by Leonard West who concluded: “there is no place whatsoever in type-writing instruction for so-called rhythm drills” (West, 1983, page 69).
typeSmart uses the Direct Reach method, rather than the Home Keys Technique. This brings all keystrokes to a more or less uniform level of required dexterity, except perhaps for the little fingers, thereby allowing for the possibility of flow or even rhythm. This is similar to expert typists who have been able to ‘let go’ of the Home Keys to achieve speed and flow.
Covering the keyboard
West concluded that the research indicated that covering the keys so that the student is forced to find the correct keys without looking at the keys provided no learning advantage. The eText method follows this conclusion by allowing the student to look at the keys initially at the same time as employing a method that encourages the student to look at the screen.
References
- West, Leonard J. (1983) Acquisition of Typewriting Skills, Methods and Research in Teaching Typewriting and Word Processing. 2nd Edition: Bobbs-Merrill educational Publishing, Indianapolis (out of print).
Computers are creative tools, so for managerial and professional people and students creating text is ‘word-smithing’, rather than mechanically copying drafts. Word-smithing requires looking at the screen in the same manner as hand-writing. In contrast, the traditional typing method often involves copying a document and watching that rather than the text being created.
Note the differences between computers and typewriters.
- Computer keyboard is flatter and more compact.
- The supposed necessity of resting the hands on the keys is a legacy of the steep inclination and large spread of the mechanical typewriter keys and the necessity to move up and down as well as sideways.
- Accuracy is less important on the computer.
- With a typewriter, it is difficult to correct mistakes, so accuracy is important from the beginning in the traditional typing method. A computer is more forgiving in that mistakes are easily corrected, and thus the accuracy of keystrokes is not initially as important.
Traditional Typing Methods.
The Home Keys are across the middle of the keyboard – A-S-D-F on the left, and J-K-L-; on the right.
The Home Keys technique requires keeping at least one finger of each hand on the home keys while reaching for the other keys above and below. Most keyboards have raised ‘bumps’ on two of these keys (usually F and J) to help you find those keys easily.
Typists are instructed to start typing with their fingers on the Home Keys and rest them there when not actually typing. Novice students of typing are made to do extensive Home Key exercises. The Home Keys technique soon becomes an in-grained habit.
For old-fashioned typewriters, the Home Keys technique was perhaps logical. The fingers needed to start at the middle row of the keys and to reach up and down large steeply inclined keys. The modern computer keyboard is almost flat, yet the Home Keys technique has been slavishly maintained.
What problems has this caused?
- Boredom.Because of the QWERTY keyboard arrangement, the Home Keys technique requires the drudgery of nonsense drills resulting in mental ‘junk chunks’ and faulty cognitive imprinting, which you then have to un-learn in order to type real words. For example, having practised ‘frf’ or ‘juj’ endlessly, when will there ever be a word that uses those combinations?The prominent researcher and expert on typing teaching methods, Leonard West, identified the problem of these nonsense exercises and recommended the minimal use of these in typing teaching methods (West, 1983).
- Mind-mapping confusion.The stroking out patterns used in the Home Keys technique are complicated, and cross over the Key-Finger Groups that expert typists have learned. This causes mind-mapping confusion.Compare the simple Key-Finger Groups of typeSmart with the complicated charts supplied with popular typing tutorial packages.
- Awkward fingering.The habit of keeping one or more fingers on Home Keys produces a range of individual fingering techniques ranging from fairly easy to quite awkward. Try these two examples:Type ‘G’ keeping the little finger on the ‘A’ key, or type ‘U’ keeping the little finger on the ‘;’ key.Type ‘C’ using the ‘D’ finger (middle finger) while keeping any of the other fingers on one of the Home Keys ‘A-S-D-F’.
The first exercise is quite easy and the second is quite awkward, almost impossible for many. Thus trying to keep fingers in contact with the Home Keys requires the mastering of many awkward fingering techniques.
- Disruption to Creative Flow.This awkward fingering involved in the Home Keys technique means that any real flow to text creation is difficult. Easy fingering speeds up the flow and awkward fingering slows it down.
- Performance Anxiety.Learning traditional typing can be quite stressful because of the great emphasis on the accuracy and speed of individual keystrokes while not looking at the keyboard. This creates performance anxiety.Traditional typing tutor software ‘beeps’ when you do not succeed, and displays all your mistakes on the computer screen. These negative audio and visual responses raise your performance anxiety and incorrectly imprint the mistake in your mind confusing the mind-mapping.
- Possible Contributor to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. There is also the possibility that the Home Keys technique is a contributor to Repetitive Strain Injury due to the awkward key strokes, imperfect coordination, and conditioned stress from performance anxiety.
How is typeSmart different?
- Uses Direct Reach method even for beginners.
Our observations of high-speed typists (100 wpm or more) indicate that they do not reach out from the Home Keys and return while typing at high speed. Instead they have instinctively learned the Key-Finger Groups as a psychomotor skill (like driving or playing sport). Out of habit they may rest their hands on the Home Keys when about to start or when not actually typing, but once they begin typing the Home Keys technique is dropped.This is confirmed by the advice of West who recommends: “Do not discourage direct reaching for the keys; do not insist on a return to the home keys after each stroke” (West, 1983, page 69). In other words, West is advising that typists need to drop the Home Keys technique in order to become expert. So typeSmart encourages using Direct Reach right from the start.
- Uses the space-bar for anchoring.
The common-sense principle of the space-bar as the anchor key is the start of the mind-map to the Key-Finger Groups. The space-bar is the biggest and easiest key to hit on the keyboard (what a relief after those awkward Home Keys!). You can hit it easily with either thumb, and there are always spaces between words! - Teaches common groups of letters found in normal language. Rather than combine letters in strange ways just to practise typing, typeSmart uses only letter combinations that occur in normal language. For example, ‘fr’, ‘gu’, ‘de’, ‘as’.Linguists say that 81% of all words are made up of mono-syllables and thus learning to type common mono-syllables allows you to master typing real words more quickly than through learning individual keystrokes.This means training your unconscious mind to automatically associate, firstly, areas of the keyboard with your fingers, and then, whole words and syllables with finger movements in the way a pianist associates keys with notes and then learns chords. We use piano music in the typeSmart software to reinforce this association.
- Focuses on the keys we mainly use – the letters, the space bar, full stop and comma.You can start exercises by looking at the keyboard, and your attention will naturally be drawn up to the screen as you progress. You can concentrate on learning to type instead of worrying about mistakes.Unless you are required to be an expert typist, you are allowed to look at the keyboard to use the less commonly-used peripheral keys.
- Uses the same cognitive processes we use to speak and read.typeSmart uses the two modalities of learning – sight and audio – as words are ‘seen’ by some people and ‘heard’ by others.
- Helps the creative juices flow. typeSmart is based on ‘trial and success’, not ‘trial and error’, so it is more enjoyable and less stressful. typeSmart acknowledges your success with positive feedback; if you make a mistake, the letter does not appear on the screen – the lesson proceeds only when you type the correct letters. You can relax while remaining reasonably alert.Direct Reach brings all fingering to a more or less uniform level of dexterity, thereby allowing for the development of flow and rhythm. This is similar to expert typists who have been able to ‘let go’ of the Home Keys to achieve speed and flow.
- Potentially reduces the risk of keyboard-related injury.
- The Direct Reach method avoids the physically awkward or impossible keystrokes.
- Modern learning principles help to make typing an enjoyable and creative experience, allaying performance anxiety.
The easiest, fastest, and safest method of learning keyboard skills.
typeSmart is a breakthrough in typing technology, the only typing tutor or keyboard skills software that incorporates the:
- Latest research into the effectiveness of typing methods.
- Mind-mapping concept of Tony Buzan.
- Accelerated learning techniques, in particular those of Colin Rose.
typeSmart is based on the standard QWERTY keyboard that everyone already uses, so there’s no need to be switching between keyboards.
Basic keyboard skills can be attained in an average of 4-6 hours of recorded progress, compared to more than 12 hours for traditional typing software. typeSmart halves the time!
typeSmart will give you immediate results, dramatically increase your productivity and greatly improve your enjoyment of using your computer.
Site licenses are available for schools, businesses, and other organisations.
Each set of licenses includes a CD, which will allow you to run typeSmart on either Windows or Mac (click here to see what’s on the CD)
| Up to 4 licenses: | US$ 49 each plus 1 CD |
| 5 to 9 licenses: | US$ 42 each plus 1 CD |
| More than 9 licenses: | US$ 39 each plus 1 CD |
Contact us for prices for greater quantities.
Click on this button to go to a secure sales page, then choose the quantity you require.
typeSmart’s modern learning methods and innovative approach addresses this dilemma, greatly reducing the time needed to learn keyboard skills. Continue reading “Halve the time required to teach students to type” »
