MecaNet-Collection

Pros

• Freeware
• More than 20 typing courses
• English and Spanish

Cons

• Outdated UI and support

MecaNet Collection is a program that teaches typing and can hep you continue to improve.

MecaNet Collection is an educational program for Windows designed to help people learn how to type properly and can help those who already have fundamental typing skills improve on them. The program is freeware and can help you evolve from complete newbie to skilled typist. A profile tracks your progress, and multiple users can have distinct profiles that can be saved and loaded as needed.

This application supports both the English and Spanish languages as well as keyboards. You can set the language and keyboard per profile and can maintain multiple profiles if necessary. The base curriculum features 20 distinct typing courses that are very simple to begin but get quite difficult. The intention is that you continue with one lesson until you have mastered it. You then move onto the next.

One way that MecaNet succeeds where other typing programs fail is that it establishes good form. Starting with the first lesson, the program provides an image of the left and right hand at the bottom of the screen. You can see which starting positions the program expects your fingers to be in, and as you type the text presented, it shows which fingers should be moving to which keys.

Most people have learned to type on their own even if that just means hunting and pecking. Many users will come to MecaNet with bad habits. The program works to identify them and will alert you when slip back into them. Focusing on this incorrect technique is invaluable to clearing those early hurdles.

In addition to the 20 lessons, MecaNet features a number of games, including Rain of Letters, which is a Tetris knockoff. Most of the games are reasonably fun diversions, and they integrate the core concepts of the lessons. It provides a way to continue learning without the structure of the main curriculum.

Each lesson has concise instructions that are easy to understand. Most of the teaching is done through visual and audio components. The user interface is reasonably well-organized, but it boasts a Web-style aesthetic that was probably already outdated at the time of release. It is completely usable, but the garishness of it may be off-putting. The design certainly belies how effective the program can be.

Many modern typing programs employ gamification. There are achievements. Users are often treated as players who are ranked by levels, gain experience points and unlock features over time. MecaNet Collection takes a more traditional approach. It is unclear which approach is better from an educational standpoint, but gamification elements do add a carrot element that is missing here.

Perhaps the bigger issue is that MecaNet Collection was originally released for Windows XP. It received some updates but no major ones. That means that there is no official support for Windows 10 or any Windows OS that came after XP. You will have to run it in compatibility mode, which worked for us. But compatibility mode can be unpredictable, so your mileage may vary.

Pros

• Freeware
• More than 20 typing courses
• English and Spanish

Cons

• Outdated UI and support