Learning how to type with a web app

Schools all over Flanders use this web app during class. Thanks to the diversity of practice forms, pupils can improve their typing skills in an informal way. While doing the exercises, pupils get an overview of their current typing pace and the number of mistakes they made. Teachers can adjust the difficulty level per class group or individual student to suit the level of the group, but also to keep challenging everyone.

In a clear logbook both students and teachers can view and filter exercises made. Teachers can also have exercises automatically graded using self-managed evaluation sets. In the same place they can give students feedback.

All created exercises, quotations and exercise checks are stored via a perfomant MongoDB and disk storage. Mongodb is an alternative to MySQL. MySQL is an ideal application for storing relational data, but for this case we need a document-based model.  

MongoDB is an open source document-oriented database where you can store documents as completely as possible, including all relations, as one document. The solution for Typ-Top is much more comparable to a Solr platform than to a traditional database. Moreover, in a MongoDB solution, you can store a lot of data, more than in a traditional RDBMS (Relational Database Management System). To easily handle the peaks during school sessions, we optimised the database.

We streamlined the front-end and all interactions with the ReactJS framework. In a well-organised log, both pupils and teachers can view and filter the exercises they have made. Teachers can also have exercises graded automatically using self-managed evaluation sets. In the same place, they can give feedback to students.

The ReactJS framework turns the interactive Typ-Top tool into an efficient web application. The code is clean, easy to maintain and well-documented. Again, future-proof.