Old School Typing Tournament! #busedu

This week in my Computer Applications class, we've had some fun. Last week, I had students take about half the hour to do some typing practice (Typing Academy 2 minute timings). I walked around while students were typing just checking out their typing speeds (which, by the way, my students were pretty impressive! I had 12 out of my 25 who were typing around 50 wpm or more!). If they got a speed they wanted me to see (improved), they could call me over and I recorded it old school on a clipboard.

I had decided to probably take the top 10 or so and create a bracket, but due to time, I just went with top 8. I found an online "bracket" through Challonge and plugged in the names based on their ranks on my walkarounds and put it on my class website and Twitter, so they could all see who was ranked where. They were quite eager for me to update it each day!



The competition rounds were fierce! They had to type at my teacher computer at the front of the room on the big screen (yep, where everyone could watch). PRESSURE. And it really affected speeds. They were feeling it! I always had the  lower seed go first and they got TWO attempts, just to take a little pressure off. Round 1 we did over two class periods and then the other rounds on two different days. Students were also working on their independent review (Mindtap SAM reviews for our final exam, which got boring sometimes, so this was a distraction at times for those who wanted a break!).

I used this website and created a "custom text" timing (sign up with a Google account for free and you can create and save your own) that they typed (this example is round 3, which I actually gave my top two the night before so they could practice on their own), but I started with different text for the other rounds and they didn't get to practice it in advance)-->
         Final Round  https://www.keyhero.com/custom-typing-test/tournament-3/

To determine their actual "score" I took the words per minute times the accuracy rate. If you look at my bracket, it was pretty close a few times and accuracy mattered!

If I were to do it again, I might do two brackets (silver and gold, tiered so slower ones have a chance to win) or a double elimination. I probably should have done a third place match, too. But, this was my first attempt. In my Computer Apps class, students do Typing Club as a side thing and in class several days during the semester, so we are always encouraging them to improve typing speed and accuracy; this was just a fun way to end the course, and it was a bit fun listening to the students root for the underdogs!