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Hi John - I really liked this - great way of exploring the keyboard. The only thing is that the 'Interactivity / Modify Exercises' don't actually give any personal feedback. It will also potentially provide problems for people with poor spelling awareness who might think that they had copied some inaccurately when they haven't. I wonder if the exercise part of the presentation would work better as a Gap Fill page type where the text string they needed to type was presented on the first line and the second line was a very large gap where they had to replicate it without looking at keyboard. Another page type that would work well would be interactive diagram where you could set up different hotspots (including distractors) - for example you could ask them to click on the shift key and have both shift keys hotspotted to feedback "Yes well done" but also have highlighted the alt key, Windows key and control key - each of which would give individually specific feedback - for example "Sorry - that's the CTRL key .. but the Shift key is nearby.. try again" Thanks for sharing this - it's great to see actual examples From: A list to facilitate and support teachers using Xerte Online Toolkits [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney Sent: 08 January 2013 11:48 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Basic Keyboard Skills I wanted to have a block of text that could be modified to enable practice with the various keys and so I used 'Interactivity / Modify Exercises' for this. Any better alternatives? - I think that works well. I'm not sure how else you'd want to do it - if you could do anything you wanted, what would you do instead? I suppose you could respond to the actual key presses, and have an interaction where you prompted 'Press the 'a' key' and then moved on to the next prompt once the user had pressed the key. Julian From: A list to facilitate and support teachers using Xerte Online Toolkits [mailto:[log in to unmask]]<mailto:[mailto:[log in to unmask]]> On Behalf Of John Whalley Sent: 08 January 2013 09:20 To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Subject: Basic Keyboard Skills Hi Everyone, I was working on a keyboard skills pack for my Age UK students at the end of December and thought it might be useful to share it with folks. I would appreciate a (constructive) critique. I have tried it out with my students who seemed to like it when I used it with them this week, but we can all make improvements. It is based on the keyboard skills exercises at http://www.seniornetdallas.org/dallas/sn-exercises.htm which, whilst excellent, many of my students found difficult to use due to motor skills problems and the limitations of the computer system in our library. The pack is available to view (or use) at : http://www.jwhlearning.co.uk/xerte/keyboard/ I used the 'Interactivity / Interactive List' page to illustrate the keyboard which allows for a quick selection of a relevant keyboard section - any thoughts on improving this? One problem I found with it is that it doesn't seem to have the ability to add an image to the first page (I would have liked an 'unhighlighted' keyboard on this page). I wanted to have a block of text that could be modified to enable practice with the various keys and so I used 'Interactivity / Modify Exercises' for this. Any better alternatives? - Please let me know. I have attached the archive zip to this email so feel free to adapt it if you wish. A Happy New Year to all! John -- John Whalley Tel: 01482 870013 Mob: 07939 631 832 Skype: whalleyj Twitter: @whalleyj11 This email is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient please accept our apologies. Please do not disclose, copy, or distribute information in this email nor take any action in reliance on its contents: to do so is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. Please inform us that this message has gone astray before deleting it. Please note that views expressed in this email are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Higher Education Academy. Please note that this e-mail has been created in the knowledge that Internet e-mail is not a secure communications medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Although we have taken steps to ensure this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advise that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. The Higher Education Academy Registered No 4930131