A recent post written on keyboarding by Jacqui Murray got me thinking again about my lack of keyboarding skills. I don’t know about you but I STILL can’t type properly. After all these years I still type with two fingers at great speed, always looking at my keyboard AND I make dozens of typos! They are not spelling mistakes – it is just that my fingers get in the way of each other. A parent assured me recently that he recently found a keyboarding site on the internet and taught himself to type properly in two weeks by practising daily. So it can be done! In the wave of technology that is descending on us with such rapid speed, shouldn’t we be pointing our students to some kind of typing programme that they can work on at home? I really don’t want my students to end up like me! I want them to develop fast, accurate typing skills.
Qwerty keyboard
To check whether your keyboard is a QWERTY keyboard, just take a look a the first six keys on the top left. If they spell QWERTY then your keyboard is the typical computer keyboard.
Finger exercises
A post on finger exercises in ehow.com mentions that "typing requires finger dexterity and practice. Incorrect placement of fingers on the keyboard and weak finger muscles can lead to repetitive use injuries. Twenty-nine bones, 29 joints, 123 ligaments and 34 muscles are used every time you type a sentence, according to the website for the Electronic Textbook of Hand Surgery. Finger exercises for typing can strengthen muscles and prevent injuries".
In this blog post I am going to point you to some keyboarding sites, and then I am going to highlight Jacqui Murray’s novel idea. She created a wiki with a three weeks typing programme on it for her students.
Keyboarding sites
First, let’s look at some free typing programmes on the Internet. There are so many of these that there's really no excuse for not learning fast typing skills.
1. BBC Schools' Dance Mat typing. Work your way through 4 levels. I have used this one frequently at school and the students love it.
2. TypingWeb is a free online typing tutor & keyboarding tutorial for typists of all skill levels. TypingWeb also offers officially sanctioned typing and 10 Key certification.
3. Test your typing speed:
4. A whole collection of sites related to keyboarding.
5. Typing exercise:
6. A teacher’s typing manual:
7. Free typing game:
http://www.freetypinggame.net/play15.asp
http://www.freetypinggame.net/play15.asp
8. Peter’s online typing course:
http://www.typing-lessons.org/
http://www.typing-lessons.org/
9. Krazy keyboarding for kids:
10. A free online typing course called Goodtyping:http://www.goodtyping.com/
11. A typing test and a free typing tutor called Learn 2 Type:http://www.learn2type.com/
12. Finger jig – This is a 6 minute typing game that tests your typing ability. Words are randomly chosen from a dictionary of over 70,000 words. You must try and type the words as quickly and accurately as you can.
http://www.jonmiles.co.uk/games/fingerjig/
http://www.jonmiles.co.uk/games/fingerjig/
14. A lovely selection of keyboarding games for students:
http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/keyboarding_games.html
I wonder if you can suggest any others that you enjoy using?
http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/keyboarding_games.html
I wonder if you can suggest any others that you enjoy using?
Jacqi Murray’s keyboarding wiki
Jacqui has this novel idea of setting up a wiki with a three week programme that her students can use at home. I like this idea so much. You can view Jacqui's original keyboarding post here at this address: (http://askatechteacher.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/weekend-website-63-teach-keyboarding/ ) To visit her wiki site click on the picture below:
She has a page called ‘What we did today’ that lists the suggested daily routine.
Well, maybe there’s hope for me after all to become a touch typist. If you look at what is available on the internet there is just no excuse! Do you perhaps have any other sites to suggest?
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