Jane Hart has listed five sites where you can learn to touch type online, free of charge. As the ratio of keyboarding to writing changes, it becomes increasingly useful to have good keyboarding skills.
When I was at school, typing was only available to girls and only those in their final three years of high school. The choice was that or maths. So choosing typing was like opting for a female stereotype many of us were trying hard to escape. I took maths.
But keyboarding is now a part of pretty much everyone's daily life, and it stands to reason that our kids need keyboarding skills now as much as our grandparents needed penmanship skills. As far as I know, this is still not an integral part of the primary school curriculum.
More's the pity.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Learning to touch type
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3 comments:
Interestingly enough, my daughter was taught touch type, but does not use the process. Since getting a facebook account and a cell phone, she uses a two finger (forefinger and thumb) process that I see many of her generation using at a much faster rate than she ever used using all of her fingers.
I wonder if touch type teaching will change because of these new technologies.
Karyn,
Good post. My father was a high school accounting teacher that also taught typing in summer school. I took two session of typing with him and it was one of the best investments that I EVER made. I teach online courses and I could not survive without touch typing. It makes my online teaching life SO much easier. I am encouraging my kids to get keyboarding/typing as soon as possible. It will be interesting to see whether or not they follow the same patter that Virginia notes.
At Learning Technologies this year, Don Taylor asked us to preface our presentations with 'what we wished we'd known ten years ago'.
Mine was that if I'd known how much technology would figure in my life I'd have learnt to type.
I don't think I'm overstating things when I say that the inability to interact with technology is akin to illiteracy or innumeracy (lord, I hope I've spelt those correctly!)
I'm not suggesting that kids should spend their time glued to their Xbox/PS3/Wii/PC etc, but I do think parents should think carefully before instantly assuming that time spent that way is time wasted.
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