We’re coming across this topic frequently in news articles, and it’s the subject of many online debates. Is handwriting about to be declared dead, and a useless skill? Is touch typing the future – and only – way of communicating non-verbally?

Teachers, parents, and students are all wondering if learning cursive is relevant in a tech-driven world. This gives rise to a more pressing question: what should students learn first, touch typing or handwriting?

Current changes in education are giving precedence to touch typing and effectively moving handwriting skills to the backseat. Is this wrong, or should it be called smart adaptability? Students are now expected to use their keyboards to do research, complete assignments, and take exams – and this leaves handwriting instruction behind. Justifiably, students need to learn how to touch type in order to effectively handle their school homework and in-class assignments. Touch typing is the future. As gadgets and technologies make their way into the classroom, it’s only natural that schools want to prioritize keyboarding skills over handwriting.

However, this doesn’t mean we should rule out handwriting altogether. Handwriting is a deeply complex motor skill that’s cognitively challenging and essential to master. Handwriting involves several brain faculties at once, including sensory, motor, and language centers of the brain, and of course our senses of hearing and sight and touch. Considering the Common Core standards — that the majority of U.S states have adopted — students need to be proficient touch typists by the time they complete the 3rd grade.

This of course means that students need to formally learn how to touch type in class. This doesn’t indicate, however, that it should entirely replace handwriting instruction. The two are equally essential skills. No matter how pervasive text-language and keyboard-based devices will become in the next 20 years, handwriting will still be required for things like signatures, paying by check, writing thank you notes, and jotting down grocery lists. And of course, there’s the possibility of being creative and expressive through cursive writing.

Yes, the “for handwriting” argument is one that is generally imbued with nostalgia, and for some people even a fear of something so familiar going out of popularity.

It could also be that the rise of tablet use could mean that not even physical keyboards will survive the obsession with touch-screen devices, but isn’t handwriting a uniquely human skill? Given that, it’s not something we should let go extinct.

Writing skills, including cursive writing, are part and parcel of language acquisition and mastery. Perhaps our brains are agile enough to adapt to a new channel of language learning where writing is replaced with touch typing, but then would people be able to read cursive or sign a legal contract if they’ve never written using pen and paper before? It’s obvious that at least for the foreseeable future, handwriting is here to stay.

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It seems that everyone is in a constant frenzied pursuit of more happiness, more money, more skills, more power. This pursuit doesn’t have to be entirely random and chaotic, though. You can achieve all these things if you can prioritize wisely. For instance, you cannot earn more money if you lack the necessary tech skills to succeed in the modern marketplace, and you cannot find everlasting happiness unless you engage in some self-reflection and life evaluation first.

If you combine new and modern skills with tried-and-true wisdom, you will be able to prepare yourself for a brighter future.

Leadership

Leadership is an umbrella term for being an assertive, resourceful, and confident individual. A leader is someone who’s bold enough to take risks, and yet wise enough to take these risks only at the most appropriate times.

Leadership is an attribute that will make you stand out and help you achieve more in life.

Emotional Intelligence

While our school curriculum focuses on teaching us math, science, languages and other skills, what classes are we taking that nurture and grow our emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is more than a fancy, trendy term. It’s an ability that’s essential in our homes, our offices, our societies, and our schools.

Emotional intelligence is an increased empathy, sensitivity, and awareness of your own feelings, moods, and attitude – as well as those of others. Emotional intelligence helps you make the most out of your personal potential, and also avoid interpersonal crises while nurturing a benevolent overall culture in all possible contexts.

Time Management

Time management is an essential skill. In fact, time management is the alpha and the omega when it comes to conquering goal after goal. With good time management comes better organizational skills, and the two combined ensure you can reach your goals in a time-efficient, impressive fashion.

Teamwork

In the world of digital collaboration, massive open online courses, and Ed Tech, it’s obvious that without basic teamwork you cannot achieve everything you want. In fact, you will achieve more if you don’t always work alone. Studies are now focusing on the fact that solitary work habits cannot compete with the results and side benefits of collaboration.

Cultivate your teamwork skills and you will realize the true power of collaborative thinking and acting at your job, in your home, and with your family and friends.

Tech Skills

Innate and learned skills will only get you so far if they don’t relate to today’s modern lifestyle. Our world is a tech-driven one, and if you are not adept at using new technologies, chances are you’re going to be left behind.

While you watch other people speed read and touch type their way to success, you will be struggling with slow-paced skills and outdated keyboarding techniques. The only way forward is by being time-efficient at everything you do.

Speed Reading

Since the digital content revolution, the amount of new knowledge syndicated every minute grows nonstop. This has made many people anxious and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content they must handle every day in order to keep themselves up to date with new developments.

That’s where speed reading comes in. With speed reading, you can read efficiently and always be in the know. If knowledge is power, with speed reading you become invincible.

Touch Typing

Another time-based skill is keyboarding. With work, entertainment, and communication being mostly done through computer monitors and touch screens, it’s only reasonable to want to improve your touch typing skills and make the most out of your time every day.

Digital Literacy

Educational platforms, mobile apps, the Cloud, online research, blogging and coding. The list of tech skills we are expected to at least be aware of is continually growing.

While it’s probably not realistic to try to master all possible tech skills, having a general idea as to the most popular and essential ones will ensure you can keep up with the rest of the competition and make certain your lack of digital literacy doesn’t stand in the way of your aspirations.

What comes to mind when you think of typing skills? Usually, we imagine a person typing with ease and confidence on a sleek, high-tech keyboard in a multi-million-dollar company.

When we teach young students how to touch type, the ultimate goal is none other than preparing children to grow up to become skilled professionals with bright career prospects ahead of them.

Of course, without other skills and education, a person cannot advance in life with typing skills alone. But it is perhaps the single most important tech skill right now.

Better Career Prospect

Every parent and every teacher wishes that the children in their care will be successful in life. Touch typing, although not the only vital life and professional skill out there, is still one that has timeless value in our increasingly tech-driven world.

Any tech skill is important, but those with advanced typing skills gain a head start over their competitors. They are more productive and focused in their work, hence more valuable and indispensable to their company.

Competent, Confident, Healthy Students

It is often the case that teens type faster on their smartphones than they can on their computers. This is because they didn’t have the support they needed to learn the right keyboarding techniques. Students who have received formal typing instruction through a typing software or school class have learned the typing skills they need to be able to type efficiently and without putting too much strain on their wrists, hands, and shoulders.

What’s more, an advanced typist is more likely a confident one, and a confident student will not be easily intimidated by school workloads.

Getting Rid Of Ineffective Typing Techniques

Anyone who didn’t have the chance to receive formal typing lessons has developed their own unique hunt and peck method for typing. In general, these methods use at maximum only four fingers. While this works with informal tasks like chatting or browsing websites, it’s neither efficient nor sustainable in the workplace, especially for anyone who has a computer-based job, such as a translator, a developer, a graphic designer, or a data analyst.

Touch typing lessons give you the essential know-how to type accurately. Through practice, you gradually improve your typing speed as well. With advanced typing skills you ensure you don’t fall behind in your school assignments that are keyboard-based.

Ultimately, touch typing offers immediate benefits for students that helps them better handle school projects and activities. Over the long term it lets them boost their professional image and employability prospects.

Cross-posted on the Spreeder blog.

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is a feature-rich release of the popular program. It offers you the latest in cloud technology and social sharing functionality, and has numerous other enhancements and features for more efficient and entertaining practice.  Let’s have a look at prominent reviews of the typing program so far.

Always Review proclaims Ultimate Typing™ an industry leader

Always Review, an established reviewer of programs and other technologies, shared in a helpful, in-depth review of the program in 2014. The editors at Always Review discovered that the combination of features, user-friendliness, expert-designed activities, and several unique functionalities make Ultimate Typing™ a top option for anyone looking to improve their keyboarding skills effortlessly. The editors were particularly impressed by the fact that the program is designed to be effective with only a couple of minutes of practice per day. The verdict sums it up quite well. “With the ease of use and effectiveness of this software,” the editors note, “you will have to look long and hard to find a product that offers the same level of performance as this software. For the amount it is sold for, it is very good value for money. ”

Ed Tech Round Up declares Ultimate Typing™ an essential classroom resource

EdTechRoundUp.com, an organization that aims at helping educators make the most of technology in the classroom, published a detailed review of Ultimate Typing™ EDU, the program version that has been especially designed for classroom use.

Ultimate Typing™ EDU makes it possible to gain typing efficiency through fun and interactive typing games and activities. At the same time, it offers powerful reporting functionality to both teacher and student to better monitor the user’s progress. EdTechRoundUp’s review concludes by saying, “Touch typing and keyboarding skills are essential to prepare students for today’s highly-competitive job market, and eReflect offers Ultimate Typing™ EDU to help educators and students achieve this important goal.”

Tina’s Dynamic School Plus rates and evaluates Ultimate Typing™

Established blogger and successful homeschooling mother Tina, from Tina’s Dynamic School Plus, offers a must-read, in-depth review of Ultimate Typing™ from a perspective that’s unique;: that of a mother who wants the best for her chidren’s education and success.

The blogger confirms the importance of typing skills in her children’s education and future career prospects, and wraps up her review with a statement many other mothers that offered Ultimate Typing to their children can sympathize with, saying, “After I unwrapped Ultimate Typing, I instantly saw the superior quality.  There is just no comparison to other programs I have used over the years and that includes comparing what you get for the price too.”

Cross-posted on the Ultimate Typing blog.

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“Ultimate Typing is a polished and highly effective typing software application that typists of all ages and skill levels will find beneficial. The software is designed to teach you basic keyboarding skills and then help you improve your typing speed and accuracy once you have grasped the fundamental concepts. Ultimate Typing does this through a winning combination of step-by-step training lessons and video instruction. An equal focus on accuracy and speed ensures that you gain well-rounded keyboarding skills, and appealing typing games make the software as engaging as it is effective. That’s why we gave this software our Top Ten Reviews Silver Award.”

Here are Toptenreview.com‘s list of criteria in reviewing the most updated typing software of 2015:

Typing Training 9.6/10

This typing software combines touch-typing activities with detailed video instruction. At the beginning of each lesson, a video instructor introduces a new typing concept and demonstrates how to perform it. This instruction is followed by numerous typing exercises to help you develop that particular skill. The formula is simple but highly effective.

Click here for more details.

Learning Tools 9.8/10

Ultimate Typing boasts a number of features that will make your learning experience effective and enjoyable. To make sure you get the most out of its lessons, the software employs a technique known as adaptive learning. This means the software continually tracks your progress to customize your learning. For instance, if you perform poorly on a lesson or exercise, the software prompts you to repeat it until you attain a certain skill level.

Click here for more details.

Progress Reporting 10/10

Ultimate Typing provides excellent reporting features, so you know exactly how well and at what rate you are progressing through the application. Two essential stats to know when you are using any typing software are your accuracy percentage and words per minute (wpm). The application continually tracks both, as well as your adjusted wpm rate. This is an adjusted formula in which your wpm rate is reduced by the number of typing errors you make.

Help & Support 10/10

If you run into any problems while using the program there is a system in place that lets you report it immediately. You can also contact customer support directly to resolve any issues you may have.

Click here for more details.

Cross-posted on the Ultimate Typing blog.

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eReflect has been preparing Ultimate Typing™ 2015 for some months now. Today, a completely revamped typing tutor offers even more games, activities, and advanced features to make learning to touch type a fun experience for all.

A Cloud-based Ultimate Typing™ Experience

The brand new cloud-based Ultimate Typing™ is equipped with the latest tools, features, and capacities to make learning even more efficient and pleasant.

Ultimate Typing™ 2015 is entirely cloud based. This means there are no heavy downloads, no re-installs for new versions, no limited access from a single location.

The Ultimate Typing™ interface is cloud-accessible for every user, from anywhere. Software updates will be instantly implemented and the user will always have the latest version to practice with. Being cloud-based also means no ads to distract your practice sessions. You’ll also like the fact that you can enjoy fast, responsive software that uses the latest cloud technology to promote your learning.

Social Media Sharing

eReflect’s software products are notable for their compelling approach to learning. Every activity and game is fun to practice with, and every aspect of the software makes learning a pleasurable experience.

Today, eReflect is introducing social media integration for its Ultimate Typing™ 2015 software as a way of encouraging users to practice more, and then show off their results on Facebook.

Users can create a unique Ultimate Typing™ profile where they can check their practice history and results, as well as share their practice scores with their friends on Facebook. This will be appealing for younger users who will want to do better at their practice to keep improving their scores and sharing them with others.

Practice Gamification

As if the activities and games weren’t fun enough, now eReflect introduces success points, a new feature that lets you collect points each time you complete a practice session. This gives an extra incentive to practice because you know that the more you do the more success points you will collect – and the better you’ll look to your friends on Facebook!

New Games and Exercises

The 2015 Ultimate Typing™ has been enriched with even more fun exercises and games so people have plenty of practice material to train with.

This year, learning to touch type with great speed and accuracy will be a piece of cake. A feature-packed Ultimate Typing™ 2015 will help you become efficient at keyboarding and reap all the benefits of fast, accurate typing.

Cross-posted on the Ultimate Typing blog.

We’re coming across this topic frequently in news articles, and it’s the subject of many online debates. Is handwriting about to be declared dead, and a useless skill? Is touch typing the future – and only – way of communicating non-verbally?

Teachers, parents, and students are all wondering if learning cursive is relevant in a tech-driven world. This gives rise to a more pressing question: what should students learn first, touch typing or handwriting?

Current changes in education are giving precedence to touch typing and effectively moving handwriting skills to the backseat. Is this wrong, or should it be called smart adaptability? Students are now expected to use their keyboards to do research, complete assignments, and take exams – and this leaves handwriting instruction behind. Justifiably, students need to learn how to touch type in order to effectively handle their school homework and in-class assignments. Touch typing is the future. As gadgets and technologies make their way into the classroom, it’s only natural that schools want to prioritize keyboarding skills over handwriting.

However, this doesn’t mean we should rule out handwriting altogether. Handwriting is a deeply complex motor skill that’s cognitively challenging and essential to master. Handwriting involves several brain faculties at once, including sensory, motor, and language centers of the brain, and of course our senses of hearing and sight and touch. Considering the Common Core standards — that the majority of U.S states have adopted — students need to be proficient touch typists by the time they complete the 3rd grade.

This of course means that students need to formally learn how to touch type in class. This doesn’t indicate, however, that it should entirely replace handwriting instruction. The two are equally essential skills. No matter how pervasive text-language and keyboard-based devices will become in the next 20 years, handwriting will still be required for things like signatures, paying by check, writing thank you notes, and jotting down grocery lists. And of course, there’s the possibility of being creative and expressive through cursive writing.

Yes, the “for handwriting” argument is one that is generally imbued with nostalgia, and for some people even a fear of something so familiar going out of popularity.

It could also be that the rise of tablet use could mean that not even physical keyboards will survive the obsession with touch-screen devices, but isn’t handwriting a uniquely human skill? Given that, it’s not something we should let go extinct.

Writing skills, including cursive writing, are part and parcel of language acquisition and mastery. Perhaps our brains are agile enough to adapt to a new channel of language learning where writing is replaced with touch typing, but then would people be able to read cursive or sign a legal contract if they’ve never written using pen and paper before? It’s obvious that at least for the foreseeable future, handwriting is here to stay.

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It’s that time of the year again! Are you ready to do your holiday shopping for your friends, relatives, and loved ones?

“Gift cards for everyone would be an excellent idea,” you might think. Everyone gets to buy what they want from a brand they love, right? But a gift card implies that you haven’t put much thought into the gift – or the person you’re giving that gift to. Buying a gift card might say, “I was too lazy to even bother look for a gift, so here’s some free money. Oh, and Merry Christmas!” This is not the true meaning of a gift. Gift giving is about taking the time and effort to make a meaningful, thoughtful gift to a loved one.

A Book

For those friends and family members who love curling up in their book nest with a cup of tea, books make an easy but entirely appropriate gift. Whether you choose a New York Times best-seller or a classic title is entirely up to the recipient’s taste, so think about what you’ve seen them reading before you buy.

The Gift of Better Orthography

Do you have a colleague who is getting a bad reputation for their misspelled memos? Give them a helping hand with a gift of spelling software like Ultimate Spelling™. No more embarrassing misspellings in emails, reports, and PowerPoint presentations  – you coworker will be a friend for life.

A Rich(er) Vocabulary

Communication is a vital part of daily life. So for children and young adults whose vocabulary could use a little push, why not offer them Ultimate Vocabulary™ by eReflect? This software will allow them to expand and make their vocabulary richer and more relevant and will eventually help them become better communicators, negotiators, and writers. This is a good gift for someone about to graduate from school because it will help them get the vocabulary they need to succeed in the job market.

Pro Keyboarding Skills

Do you know someone who is struggling with modern technology? Maybe they can’t figure out how to video chat with you on Hangouts, or they take forever to reply to your Facebook messages because their typing skills are poor to non-existent. Ultimate Typing™ would be the perfect gift for that person, because it will help them “level up” their keyboarding skills in no time. Of course, that might mean you’ll be getting texts and messages from them more often, but you can handle that, right?

A Visit

Sometimes a gift doesn’t have to be something tangible. Pay a visit to your grandmother, have lunch with a friend from college, or invite someone you haven’t seen in years to your Christmas party. The gift of kindness and love are truly priceless!

An Extravagant Pampering Gift

A pampering, extravagant gift is always appropriate for those special people in your life. Your hard-working mother, your significant other, your best friend – no matter who that person, do your homework and offer them a gift they will be raving about for weeks to come. It could be a spa session, a two-day mini trip, or anything the person you have in mind will fancy.

Gourmet Pleasures For the Foodies

From artisanal jams made with vodka to one-of-a-kind tea blends and limited-edition vintage wines, offer your foodie friends a mouthwatering experience they can Instagram to their heart’s content.

Whether you choose to get gifts that expand your friends’ career options or their waistlines is up to you! There are plenty of compelling gift ideas to choose from. Don’t go for run-of-the-mill, uninspiring gift cards. Instead, offer a thoughtful gift and get the joy of seeing faces lit up with excitement when they unwrap them come Christmas.

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Technology advances at a pace we can hardly keep up with.  The old sci-fi movie scenario where you could control everything around by pressing a button, typing a few keystrokes, or swiping a touchpad is no longer the realm of fiction – it’s a reality.

For many people, the demands required to cope with new technological advances is a cause of stress. The complexity of learning to use and make the most out of new technologies often makes people anxious and reluctant to integrate them in their professional and personal lives.

The inevitable question is this: how do we keep up with a constantly evolving world that’s becoming more and more tech-driven?

The answer is simple: we keep evolving, too.

As technology makes giant strides to improve our lives, we should be following its lead. If we want our lives to improve, we need to build the skills necessary for to take advantages of technology.

Build Your Tech Vocabulary

New technologies generally mean new words to learn. You need to understand the words and how to use them in order to be relevant and efficient in communicating with others. Building your vocabulary could help you understand more of the tech-based discourse you’ll find in most fields these days, even those that are not directly based in IT support and development.

Build Your Typing Skills

Keyboard-based devices are becoming more widespread. They already reign over the workplace, and are moving into more areas of the home.

You work on your desktop computer, watch movies on your tablet while commuting back home, and engage on social media through your smartphone while having dinner. Even if your typing skills are fairly weak, you will be still able to perform all these activities – you’ll just end up doing it in a counterintuitive, time-consuming manner.

Learning to touch type more efficiently is one skill that will help you cope better with technologies at home and at work. You will be able to work productively on any keyboard-based device, and do so  in less time. This will give you a sense of confidence and sovereignty over your technology. In other words, you’ll rule the device, instead of giving it power over you.

Read More, Read Often

Simply improving your typing skills and related vocabulary won’t suffice, however. There’s still a lot you can do in order to not just cope with technology, but actively leverage it to improve your life.

Start reading a lot of articles, blogs, and books on how new technologies work. Learn what the future could look like if scientists figure out ways to implement affordable technologies in our lives. Be one of the people who are “in the know” when it comes to new developments and new tech trends.

Technology has great potential, and there will always be new ways that it helps businesses grow and flourish. On a personal level, technology can enable people to capitalize on their skills and competencies in order to improve their lives.

Technology makes it possible for us to have responsive organizations: companies that are willing and able to adapt, revisit, and respond to a world that never stops changing and surprising us.

Don’t let technology intimidate you. Embrace its elegant beauty and stunning potential.

Yes, uncertainty and mistakes are part and parcel of using new technologies, but so is exhilaration and efficiency. Instead of running away from technology, try learning to use it. Experience the whole new world it makes available to you and you will soon wonder why on Earth you avoided it before.

Technology will first change how we work, and then the way we live. Just make sure you’re a competent and willing learner of technology, and it will be good to you!

Ed Tech is officially here. Schools of every type and budget size are integrating multiple technologies in the classroom to facilitate learning and to make it more appealing to students.

Thanks to the proliferation of high-quality online resources, now all schools can access a variety of free and subscription-based services and tools to benefit educators and students alike.

Technologies facilitate communication and collaboration in and out of school hours, between students and their teacher.

Technologies give students new ways to think about and solve problems and allow for consistent interaction that often leads to innovative outcomes and enhanced learning outcomes.

Educational Apps Drive Learning Forward

Whether teaching spelling improvement or helping students learn a new language, the educational apps now available for tablets and smartphones have become part and parcel of many classrooms.

Teachers are dedicating class time to in-app learning. Tech-based learning is both constructive and effective, because it gives students the sense that they are playing, not studying.

As app development becomes more focused and precise, we are expecting to see a surge of well-designed, science-based educational apps that will become an integral part of class teaching in the years ahead.

Social Media Communities Boost Collaboration

Many Ed Tech skeptics suggest that technology alienates people and promotes individual work. This is not the case. Ed Tech has a collaborative power that is almost immeasurable.

Students and teachers can get together any time of the day to chat on a dedicated private network or a popular social media network like Twitter and G+.

Instant access and contribution to these collaborative communities enhances the creative results and nurtures a sense of teamwork in students, showing them how valuable it is for innovation and better learning outcomes.

An example of this is Popplet, a platform that can be used by professionals and students alike. Its basic premise is the noting down of ideas and their organizing into visual maps. There are several other organizing and collaboration apps and web platforms that allow students to make use of their tech skills to learn, collaborate and achieve great things, such as Piktochart, DuoLingo, Explain Everything, Edmodo and Pocket.

PiktoChart

This is an infographic generator that’s browser-based. It’s the perfect tool for students and their teachers to visualize new knowledge and see how information can be presented in appealing ways to make it understandable.

Edmodo

This is a free IPhone app that facilitates collaboration, interaction, and engagement between teacher and students. Some of its features include private classroom discussions, file sharing, and assignment posting.

Explain Everything

This Android and iPhone paid app is a screencasting and design tool that also works as an interactive whiteboard, which make it perfect for the classroom.

Explain Everything lets you create fun and constructive videos and other types of content by annotating, animating, narrating, and enriching your media with notes and other types of rich content.

DuoLingo

This is a free language app that lets you learn Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, and English in a fun yet systematic way.

This app was rated Best of the Best in 2013 by the Google Play store, and its high quality content and features perfectly justify this.

There are many online tools out there designed for the classroom. Experiment with some and see how your students respond to their use.

First, however, ensure your students possess at least average touch typing skills so that they can keep up with the use of computers and other keyboard-based devices when learning through tools and apps.

Check out Ultimate Typing™ EDU for a better Ed Tech Experience! For more details on Ultimate Typing™ EDU please visit http://www.typesy.com/edu.