Obviously keyboarding is a necessary 21st century skill. Almost every job right now will use a computer in one way or another. Therefore, we must teach it to students so that they do it properly. What good is typing if you only do it one letter at a time?
So, my question is, how can we teach proper keyboarding mechanics in an authentic and meaningful way?
Most schools use some type of game or program to teach typing. My only experience is with Type to Learn, which I've seen used with 2nd-5th grade students. Type to Learn has students practice proper mechanics, starting with using the homerow. Then it branches out and goes up in levels. When you start a level you start by typing non-words and using the correct finger. Such as: jkjkjkjk, or ;l;l;l;l;l. So, here we've taught mechanics and proper fingers, but no one could try to argue this as meaningful. Eventually, you move up to the point where you are typing words and some sentences. Perhaps those are a little more meaningful, but if the sentence is about Jupiter and I don't even know what Jupiter is, what do I care?
I'm stumped as to how to teach mechanics and be meaningful. How can we let students loose to type with their own writings if they are going to 1-finger-peck at the keys to type the entire thing. Perhaps we keep teaching the mechanics with the unmeaningful programs, and then let students type their own work as they're learning mechanics.
Maybe in 100 years everyone will have personal keyboards that will read our fingerprints and be able to tell us when we are using the wrong keys while typing original works. If someone makes millions someday, remember, I had the idea first :)
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Good luck in making your millions! I am going to share a bit more about keyboarding later in the week. You are thinking about it in the right frame of mind. As elementary teachers, we have to be aware of the possibilities and then how can we do it best. I'll give you a few more tips!
ReplyDeleteI also struggled with this question. Teaching younger students, computer/keyboarding usage tends to be open-ended and allows the students to practice with limited structure. I see how this may allow students to develop bad habits such as 'finger-pecking' but how I can I provide more structure while keeping the learning meaningful? I look forward to learning the strategies Dr. S. will be introducing next week.
ReplyDeleteI agree. That is my first question that comes to mind- HOW do we teach this. I have had a lot of instruction on how to teach a lot of things, but honestly, this never crossed my mind. I would love to have all my students be able to type and be able to do fun activities with them, without having to keep in mind the typing will be very slow. I know that some students work at home on computers but not all, and once again, students in lower income families are at a disadvantage if they don't have a computer. So, we must get them typing at school. But how?
ReplyDeleteI was fascinated that we spent so much time in class discussing keyboarding. Before these discussions, I hadn't really realized what was wrong in the way we have been teaching keyboarding, but now that I see home fun, meaningful alternatives, I think we have been doing it all wrong. Keyboarding (especially in the elementary grades) doesn't need to be taught in the traditional way of having students type in random, non-coherent lines of text. It should be taught in meaningful ways. Simply allowing students to use keyboards to write stories or make brainstorming lists is a great way to allow them to have more practice keyboarding without them really realizing it! I'm amazed at how many options we have for teaching keyboards, the door really is wide open!
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