Our featured product is the Dana by AlphaSmart.  The Dana is an extremely light portable keyboard that also features Palm OS.  The combination of the two makes for an affordable alternative to a laptop computer.  Simple to use, the Dana offers a full-size keyboard and a generously-sized screen that is 3.5 times wider than the screens found on typical handhelds.  In addition to entering data by keyboard, you can use the Dana stylus to write directly on the screen.  Software on the unit includes AlphaWord (which is a full-featured word processor), a date book, an address book, and a to do list.  If your student requires further customization, the Dana is capable of running most of the over 10,000 applications that exist for the Palm OS.

All of the above information was obtained from the AlphaSmart website.  If you would like more information, they have further details on the Dana at http://www.alphasmart.com/products/dana_overview.html.
 
 

To go along with the Dana or that AlphaSmart you might already be using, here are some motivating keyboard activities we found on the Internet:

Row Races:   Put your students into teams of 4-5 people.  Using sentences from a book or paragraphs from your lessons, assign each person a sentence or paragraph.  After the teacher says "go", the team member that picked Sentence 1 begins typing that sentence.  When done typing the sentence, that person gives a "high five" to the team member with sentence 2.  That is the signal for the person with sentence 2 to begin typing.  This continues in a similar manner until all team members have typed their line.  The team finishing the allotted sentences first wins.

Type that Tune:  Bring in a Christimas CD or other CD.  Have the students type as much of the song as they can while it is being sung.  You  can restart it several times so they are able to get more of the song if desired.  Students usually enjoy getting at least the chorus.

Switch hands:  Have the students try crossing their left and right hands over each other and attempt to type sentences from their book.  This is extremely awkward and makes them realize that the regular way really isn't so bad after all.

Story Marathon:   This is a great one if you have an AlphaSmart Hub available.  Using the Hub, download story starters to a file on each of the AlphaSmarts.  Have students read their story starters and then continue the story for approximately two minutes.  After that time is up, the students switch AlphaSmarts, read the story begun by their classmate (allow a minute or so for reading), and then add more to the story for another two minutes.  This process is repeated several times.  Then have the students give the AlphaSmart back to the original owner, finish the story, and proofread.  Reading a few of them out loud is a fun way to wrap it up.  A fun alternative that really gets things hopping is to play thematic music during the activity and have the students switch chairs when the music is turned off.

Duets:  Have students choose a partner and sit together.   Students will type together with one student typing with the right hand and the other student typing with the left hand.  Have them type sentences or paragraphs from a book.  The purpose of this drill is to get them to type with a sense of rhythm.  In the beginning, students will probably call the letters out loud in an effort to let each other know where they are in the word.  After a few times, instruct them to do it silently and see what happens.

ABC's:  Have students access the Typing Timer in AlphaWord by pressing CMND+FIND.  Ask the students to type in the ABC's as quickly as they can.  The timer will automatically begin when they start typing.  When they are finished they press CAPS LOCK to stop timing.  Have them continue practicing this to see how much they can improve their time.  Then ask them to do it again but starting at a different place in the alphabet and typing until they return to the point they started (for example, PQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNO).  Challenge them further by asking them to type the alphabet backwards.

Technique Tag:  This activity encourages proper keyboard technique.  One student is chosen to walk around the room and find someone with excellent keyboard technique and then tag that person.  As with traditional tag, the individual tagged is now "it" and gets to search for another person using good technique.
 

These activities were found at the following web sources:

http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/tnl/langarts/activities.htm  (MadisonMetropolitan School District, Madison, Wisconsin) and
http://www.angelfire.com/ks/tonyaskinner/kbideas.html