Category: Keyboarding

Most elementary-age students struggle with typing. This doesn’t surprise me. They’ve been handwriting since kindergarten. They’re proud of their new cursive skills. It’s easy to grab and pencil and write. Typing, though requires setting up their posture, hand position, trying to remember where all those pesky keys are (why aren’t they just alphabetized? It’s a good point. Discuss that with students).

In third grade, I gather the students and we chat about it. Why do they have to learn to keyboard? It’s more than a skill they trot out for the keyboarding software and then forget. Discuss the idea of sharing ideas–the Gutenberg Press, when writing began with scrolls and rocks, why was it important to save ideas in perpetuity? Why is it important to students?

The discussion should come around to the idea that putting ideas in some sort of permanent fashion is important to the history of mankind. The question is how, and the ‘how’ that’s relevant to the students is a comparison of handwriting and keyboarding. Here’s where we go from there:

• Discuss whether students handwrite faster/slower than they type. Ask students to share thoughts on why their opinion is true. You are likely to get opinions on both sides of this discussion. If not, prod students with logic for both.
• When it’s clear the class is divided on this subject (or not–that’s fine too), suggest running an experiment to see which is faster—handwriting or typing.
• Circle back to science class and engage in a discussion on the Scientific Method. Develop a hypothesis for this class research, something like: Third grade students in Mr. X’s class can handwrite faster than they type (this is the most common opinion in my classes).
• Have students hand-copy the typing quiz they took earlier in the trimester for 3 minutes.
• Analyze the results: Compare their handwriting speed to their typing speed. I encourage an individual comparison as well as a class average comparison to help with understanding the conclusion.
• Discuss results: Why do students think some students typed faster and others typed slower? (In my classes, third graders typed approx. 10 wpm and handwrote approx. 15 wpm. Discussion was heated and enthusiastic on reasons. Especially valuable were the thoughts of those rare students who typed faster).
• Students will offer lots of reasons for slower typing (they’re new to typing, don’t do it much in class, their hands got off on the keyboard). In truth, the logistics of typing make it the hands-down winner once key placement is secured. Fingers on a keyboard are significantly faster than the moving pencil.
• One reason students suggest is that they don’t usually type from copy. Key in on this reason (quite valid, I think—don’t you?) and revise the experiment to have students type and handwrite from a prompt.
• What is the final conclusion?
• If possible, share results from 4-8^th. What grade level do students consistently type faster than they handwrite? Why? Are students surprised by the answer?
• Post a list on the wall of students who type faster than they handwrite. This surprises everyone.

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K-8 Keyboard Curriculum: The Essential Guide to Teaching Keyboarding in 45 Minutes a Week

You may think it impossible to find an effective keyboarding curriculum for the skimpy forty-five minutes a week you can devote to keyboarding. You teach what you can, but it always seems to be the same lessons—hands on home row, good posture, eyes on the copy. You wonder if it’s making a difference, or if it matters.

Yes, it does and there is a way. It requires a plan, faithfully executed, with your eye relentlessly on the goal, but if you commit, it works. In this book, The Essential Guide to Teaching Keyboarding in 45 Minutes a Week: a K-8 Curriculum, I’ll share a unique keyboarding curriculum for K-8 that I’ve seen work on thousands of students. The book includes:

• A summary of the literature
• Answers to the most-asked questions like ‘Can youngers learn to keyboard—and should they?’
• The importance of the teacher to early keyboarders

The K-8 curriculum includes a lot more variety than keyboard exercises on installed software. Here’s a rundown of the pieces used:

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K-8 Keyboard Curriculum:

The Essential Guide to Teaching Keyboarding in 45 Minutes a Week

You may think it impossible to find an effective keyboarding curriculum for the skimpy forty-five minutes a week you can devote to keyboarding. You teach what you can, but it always seems to be the same lessons—hands on home row, good posture, eyes on the copy. You wonder if it’s making a difference, or if it matters.

Yes, it does and there is a way. It requires a plan, faithfully executed, with your eye relentlessly on the goal, but if you commit, it works. In this book, The Essential Guide to Teaching Keyboarding in 45 Minutes a Week: a K-8 Curriculum, I’ll share a unique keyboarding curriculum for K-8 that I’ve seen work on thousands of students. The book includes:

• A summary of the literature
• Answers to the most-asked questions like ‘Can youngers learn to keyboard—and should they?’
• The importance of the teacher to early keyboarders

The K-8 curriculum includes a lot more variety than keyboard exercises on installed software. Here’s a rundown of the pieces used:

• Keyboarding software (yes, you do need repetition)
• Online keyboarding websites
• Age-appropriate use of hand covers
• Quarterly speed/accuracy quizzes
• Quarterly blank keyboarding quizzes
• Monthly homework
• Wall charts to support learning and display evidence of success
• Grading based on student improvement, not conformity to class norms

You’ll learn practical strategies on how to blend these pieces, each added at the right time, to teach the keyboarding skills required for today’s classroom.

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Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please complete the form below and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Mr. Holloway in Odessa wanted to know if there were lessons for teaching keyboarding to adults

Teaching keyboarding to adults is similar to teaching kids. They still need to learn correct posture, hand position, use of all fingers, touch typing–they just get it faster and take it more seriously. The game-like approach prevalent in teaching children isn’t necessary.

I have a wiki I use for a summer keyboarding class that starts at the beginning of keyboarding and proceeds through to mastery. You might find the progression of skills and the mix of activities useful.

Here are a list of websites that should serve well with adult students:

• Online keyboarding–this page is from Nimble Fingers. It’s great for adults, done online, and instructive
• Typing Lessons– A progressive and thorough approach designed for high schoolers–and great for adults
• Flash Cards–scroll down to ‘flash cards’ and have students type the words they see. This is challenging and important for adults to accomplish
• Typing Test–a great way to track improvements in typing speed. No log-in required

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As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I was typing and wanted to make a change (formatting, etc). Suddenly, my whole paragraph/sentence/document (fill in your disaster) disappeared. How do I get it back?

A: Let me start by saying, this Undelete tip doesn’t apply to deleted files or folders. I’m talking about when you’re typing and for some reason known only to God, all or part of your work is deleted. One moment you have two pages of your work memo completed; then, before you can scream Stop! it’s gone.

Two ideas:

• Push Ctrl+Z to undo your last steps. You may not even realize you deleted, so go back in time one step at a time until it comes back
• If the entire program disappeared from your screen, check the taskbar. It might be sleeping down there. Click on it to awaken.

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I gave you-all a long list of great websites that will help teach your students keyboarding. Here are my top five:

If the lesson plans are blurry, click on them for a full size alternative.

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Hi guys–I’m looking for suggestions on what to teach in a summer school keyboarding class, grades 3-8. I’m offering one for the first time this summer and don’t want it to be non-stop typing. I got some excellent suggestions from my friends over at Elementary Tech Teachers, but I always want more.

Do you have any activities that work well for you in a more-relaxed, casual summer environment? Once I have a list, I published them for everyone.

Thanks so much in advance for all your help! (more…)

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy! (more…)

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Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

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