Roller Typing [Old Version]

 (6 customer reviews)

Marketing gives the impression that this is a 3D interactive, when in fact it is not. After the interactions occur, and sometimes during, you are shown a canned quicktime movie. Same movie may be shown over and over and over...Any program that requires Windows users to back off of Quicktime 6 and install 2.5 from the CD-ROM is useless.Tried it on our Mac also and found that if you type too fast, it misses your keystrokes, and counts the stroke as an error! If you type too soon, even after the visual prompt is displayed, it misses the keystroke.Distracting visuals and too great a visual reliance on the keyboard chart at the expense of the source text hinders learning. IF you make a single mistake, you lose and have to start over.This program may have functioned well in its day (though I don't see how that could be), but it is out-of-date, in addition to being very poorly designed.STAY AWAY!!!

I bought this as a gift for my six year old who wanted to learn to type on the computer, tried other products at the library and the librarian recommended this one. I installed this easily on an old pentium 166 running Windows 98. It runs better than most kids software. It does have some issues with typing too fast or too slow but frankly I think it helps you place your fingers cleanly and accurately. The GREAT thing about this program is that my six year old loves it and it is teaching him good typing skills. The graphics are very interactive, if you mistype the characters (called bladers) perform comparable to your performance. The different events, cones, cow jumping (a real hoot), half pipe, sidewalk and speed skating concentrate on different typing skills. You jump more cows and do more flips over them if you are more accurate in that event. The sidewalk event requires both speed and accuracy and is definitely a challenge. The skater skates along as words are...Read more

Read an earlier review which slammed this product. Found my students to achieve decent proficiency in typing. I use it from 2nd Grade to 6th Grade. So what if it shows a canned movie. Yep I wish it would do provide other features i.e. a network version of the product so that I can review progress charts from a single view. However, despite these "shortcomings" this is one of the better typing programs in respect to achieving results. The kids love it and any program that gets students excited and involved is half-way there.