at younger and younger ages. Students that use technology a lot for
anything text related - texting, IMing, social networking, twittering,
etc. become fast at getting the information out there. The people at
the other end, of what is "instant" communication don't have the
patience for kids that are slow at pushing out the information.
About five years ago I stopped worrying about how they typed. If a
student can do 40 wpm with decent accuracy using their nose and elbow,
that is fine with me. Since the keyboarding programs are all geared
toward teaching proper fingering techniques, for most students it is
really frustrating. They already type at 30 or more words per minute
using their own technique, and trying to change the way they type
actually slows them down.
The only problem I have is with the 20% or so of students that really
have minimal keyboarding skills when going into middle school. We
require everything to be typed up in one format or another (Word, Google
Docs, etc) in school and for homework, so students that are only typing
10-15 wpm in 6th grade can really be hindered by not being able to get
the information into the computer quickly. =20
I try to have the classroom teachers do keyboarding three times a week
for 6-8 weeks in 4th - 5th grades. This usually ends up being more like
twice a week for 4-5 weeks, but it does help a little bit. We also do a
speed test in sixth grade, and any student not typing at 25 wpm (at 85%
accuracy) just gets a letter sent home with online typing programs that
can help them improve their speed. It is not required or graded. =20
Renee Ramig
Seven Hills School
-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Keith E Gatling
Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 7:29 AM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Is Typing Speed Important Anymore
Oh, I don't deny that speed and accuracy are important. My question is
should we even be testing for speed anymore, or can we assume that once
we
give them the basic skills, and they use them over and over, speed will
come?
keg
[ For info on ISED-L see
https://www.gds.org/podium/default.aspx?t=3D128874 ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.
RSS Feed, http://listserv.syr.edu/scripts/wa.exe?RSS&L=3DISED-L
[ For info on ISED-L see https://www.gds.org/podium/default.aspx?t=3D128874 ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.
RSS Feed, http://listserv.syr.edu/scripts/wa.exe?RSS&L=3DISED-L
