You should definitely look at the text, so you can learn to touch type.

Glad to see you are enjoying Colemak!

in TypeFaster you should be seeing the Colemak Keyboard layout displayed.

In the picture you posted, you have selected the US Qwerty Layout (US-English) (second menu from upper left).   If you don't have Colemak option to select in the Typefaster, then you don't have the Colemak lesson plan installed ( https://colemak.com/TypeFaster ).  Once that is installed and you select it in the Layout menu then you will be to watch the screen.

I recommend to focus on the virtual keyboard when typing on Colemak. Your main focus while learning a keyboard layout should be accuracy and certainty. I believe that looking at a virtual keyboard will help in increasing accuracy. Each time you're not sure where the key is and you guess wrong, you have to unlearn your guess, which is counterproductive to the learning process. Moreover, I believe that having a virtual keyboard makes it easier to learn, and decreases the frustration involved in the learning process.

As your typing improves, you'll reach a point where your fingers can find the keys almost as fast as your eyes, and in that case your eyes will naturally shift their focus towards the text more and more. Eventually you just won't need the virtual keyboard anymore.

Well, three weeks in and I'm typing at a consistent 30-35 words a minute. I seem to have completely forgotten QWERTY now (which is no big deal). I think my old qwerty speed was maybe 50-70 wpm. Does anyone have any tips for building speed? I wondered if typing at a consistent speed may help, i.e using a metronome.

Cheers

Edit: Just read this on Ryan Heise blog:

Tips for learning

    * After the plateau at 50 WPM, I decided to pay attention to my weaknesses, and I noticed that my most commonly mistyped character was "G". After simply focusing on "G" as I typed, my speed instantly jumped up into the 60s.
    * When I got into the 90s, progress was quite slow getting up above 100 WPM. What helped was to practice by typing with a steady rhythm, using the same amount of time to think about each character. This forced me to take the time I needed to catch common mis-presses before they happened, something that I think would have taken much longer to correct otherwise.
    * Now that my speed is above 100 WPM, my typing technique works something like this: by default, force myself to type at a steady pace -- but, when I see words or strings of words that I know I can type very quickly (e.g. using known finger rolls) then I remember to speed up on those, -- and, when I see words that I know I have problems with, I remember to slow down and type carefully. This, I have found, is the fastest way for me to type, as it tends to eliminate a lot of wasted time introducing and correcting mistakes. However, it requires being aware of your strong and weak words.

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Incredibly, typing a bit slower, trying to be accurate actually speeds up typing! I'll let you know when I'm at 50 wpm

There's always my little virtual keyboard app (http://folk.uio.no/obech/Files/Keyboard … Screen.zip) if you want something more suave - you can adjust the size and position of it, and iirc the transparency too. Or use Portable Keyboard Layout with the help image; I think maybe there will be more color options on that soon if the current scheme doesn't please you.

cool. thanks for that link, i needed something like that :)