Who doesn’t like collecting badges? Thankfully, Typing Pal has lots of them! They’re divided into four categories and are awarded for progress as well as for particular achievements, making them a fun and effective way to set new goals at home or rekindle students’ interest at school.

At Home

Typing Pal spontaneously awards badges throughout its training program. For example, there’s one for completing the initial test, one for using the application for five days in one week, and one for completing all the exercises in a step. Once the conditions for getting a badge are met, a brief notification shows the badge’s criteria along with an insignia proving that they have been met. All of the rewards earned in this way can be accessed by opening the Results tab and clicking Badges.

Badges can be more than just surprises awarded for progress. Training programs can be geared towards earning as many badges as possible, and reading their descriptions can help to determine the next objective. Each category proposes a different way of building up a badge collection.

Some badges are awarded for simple actions, such as trying out all the games. Others involve more demanding tasks, such as passing all activities with a perfect accuracy score. There’s no need to plug away at a badge that’s too difficult; it’s better to seek a more manageable challenge. The secret to staying motivated is working towards varied goals or looking to beat personal records.

At School

At school, teachers can transform these individual distinctions into a system of group motivators. For example, they can set a new challenge every week. When all or most of the students get the chosen badge, they complete their mission and win a prize.

Some achievements may even warrant public recognition. Highlighting students’ success is sure to spur them on, both to practice on the keyboard and to build up their collection!

If any students finish their exercises and texts well before most of their classmates, why not set them another challenge, such as completing 50 improvement activities or passing 10 texts with 100% accuracy? The admin interface gives teachers more ideas tailored to each student; these can be found by clicking on the Badges tab in the student’s profile. Each gray icon represents a challenge that has yet to be met.

As well as providing motivation, these badges also give a new perspective on students’ progress and achievements. A healthy badge collection is testament to a student’s perseverance and hard work. These virtual trophies add the finishing touch to the performance statistics in the evaluations or the usage reports intended for parents.

Categories to Explore

Finally, here’s an overview of the four categories of badges in Typing Pal.

1. Progress badges

These badges are markers of progress and encourage completion of all the activities.

• Initial test
• All games attempted
• All exercises in a step completed
• All texts in a section completed
• All exercises completed
• All texts completed

2. Performance badges

This category encourages excellence, rewarding perfect accuracy scores and strong performance in the games.

• Number of exercises passed with 100% accuracy: 5, 10, 15, 25, 50, 75 and all exercices
• Number of texts passed with 100% accuracy: 5, 10, 15, 25, 50, 75 and all texts
• Scores achieved in Cosmik Ball and Monkeys in Jeopardy
• Rounds completed in Magical Duel

3. Perseverance badges

These badges are awarded according to how many improvement activities are completed and how often Typing Pal is used.

• Number of improvement activities completed: 25, 50, 100, 250, 500 and 1000
• Frequency: 5 days in a week, 7 days in a week, 20 days in a month, 50 days in a year, 100 days in a year

4. Mystery badges

The criteria for this last category are secret. The only hint we can give you is to try all of the application’s options. Those who explore all Typing Pal has to offer will be rewarded with these splendid round badges!

Any Ideas?

The Typing Pal team regularly adds new badges. Do you have an idea to share with us? Suggest a challenge that you invented and that was successful, or a feature in the application that you think should be highlighted by adding to the collection of mystery badges. Tell us using our contact form.