Display Options for Activities

The display options allow students to change the configuration of the activities’ interface. The interface can be very minimal or, on the contrary, rich in feedback and information of all kinds. What’s more, students who have difficulty distinguishing certain letters can choose serif fonts or monospaced characters.

Accessing the Display Options

Students can change the display options by clicking the Options button just above the typing area in an activity window.

To control the display so that it is uniform for all students in a group, check Manage display options for activities in the group’s Configuration panel. Select the options you want and then click Save.

Options

Here is the list of display options for activities that can change what is displayed in the interface when typing.

General

  • Show statistics—Display the percent accuracy, the number of errors and the real-time speed to the right of the typing area.
  • Show elapsed time—Display the elapsed time in seconds and minutes.
  • Show progress—Display progress. Click repeatedly on the displayed value to toggle the display mode: progress bar, percentage, characters typed or remaining.
  • Indicate when performance is below targets—Vary the color of the statistics in real time: orange when a target hasn’t been met and green when it has.
  • Underline mistakes in the text—Display the errors in the text by underlining them.
  • Allow all types of apostrophes and quotation marks—Allow Typing Pal to recognize the different types of apostrophes and quotation marks when typing. (For example, a straight apostrophe ['] will be accepted for a curly apostrophe [’].)
  • Fonts
    • Sans-serif—Display a sans-serif font, i.e., without a line projecting from the top or bottom of the main stroke of the letter.
    • Serif—Display a serif font, i.e., with a line projecting from the top or bottom of the main stroke of the letter.
    • Monospaced—Display a monospaced font, i.e., where all letters are the same width.
    • Dyslexia-friendly—Display a font with more easily distinguishable letters, especially for students with dyslexia.

Exercises

  • Show instructions at the beginning—Display the targets and the instructions at the start of each activity.
  • Content of the animation zone—Choose the content you would like to see in the animation zone or hide it altogether.
    • Entertaining animations—See the Entertaining animations react to right and wrong keystrokes, depending on the context.
    • Keyboard viewer—See a keyboard template appear whenever an error is made.
  • Show characters in blocks—Frame the characters in blocks to standardize the space between each letter.
  • Briefly show typing mistakes—Briefly display each incorrectly typed character.

Texts

  • Type text in a separate area—Type in a separate area below the text of the exercise, rather than directly in the text.

Word Waves

  • Voice—Change the voice used for dictation in Word Waves.