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This study investigated the effect of a touch‐typing course on the spelling and narrative‐writing skills on the computer of elementary school students. Data of 207 students in Grades 4, 5, and 6 were analysed using a pretest–posttest design. Students in the experimental group (n = 154) followed a touch‐typing course, and those in the control group (n = 53) did not. The experimental group showed more progress in typing, spelling, and narrative‐writing skills on the computer than the control group. It can be concluded that the touch‐typing course had a positive effect, not only on typing skills but also on spelling and narrative‐writing skills on the computer. Lay Description: What is known Typing skills are important for the quality of the typewritten text output.In touch‐typing with automaticity of transcription, workting‐memory load is decreased.Studies on the effect of a touch‐typing course are rare. What this paper adds This study investigated the effect of a touch‐typing course on spelling and narrative writing.We used a design with an experimental (with typing‐course) and a control group (no course)The experimental group showed more improvement in typing, spelling and narrative writing. Implications for practitioners It is important for the quality of student's text output to learn how to touch‐typeTouch‐typing can be learned in a teacher-directed course, containing 15 training sessions of 1.5 hours eachPractice of 20 minutes a day is necessary [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we developed a digital game-based learning (DGBL) system, called the ToES, to foster students' creativity. Fifty-one fifth-grade students from two classes in a public school in Taipei, Taiwan, were recruited and consented to participate. Both classes consisted of students with mixed abilities studying a foundation unit entitled "Electrical Science" in a natural science course. One class was chosen to be the experimental group (EG) and the other class was the control group (CG). The goal of this study was to examine how different instructional strategies (i.e., traditional instruction and instruction using digital games) affected the students' creativity and their performance on manual skills. The analytical results indicated that the students' creativity and their performance on manual skills displayed positive growth when they were involved in acquiring knowledge and resolving tasks in a DGBL environment, which fostered their creativity and facilitated the generation of flow experiences. Moreover, there were three interesting findings related to the use of DGBL: (1) the ToES was an effective learning tool for cultivating the students' creativity; (2) there was a positive effect of creativity and their performance of manual skills; and (3) the ToES accelerated the improvement of practical behaviors regarding manual skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]