Keyboarding

Introduction:

Keyboarding is a skill that requires training, practice and discipline. It is a valuable and important part of Information Processing. As technology becomes more available and widely used, keyboarding skills will play an increasingly important role in many different aspects of people's lives.

Keyboarding By Touch

There are many ways to get students to practice keyboarding:

• Whenever possible have students type assignments, class notes, teacher documents or other school related projects like the Christmas concert program, school newsletters or sport team statistics. Finding relevant or meaningful documents to type will give students practice keyboarding and give them an appreciation for keyboarding

• Start each class with 10 - 15 minutes of keyboarding of text material or keyboarding manuals found in your school. Having a daily or weekly routine of keyboarding is a good way to get the class on task and focused.

• If your school has a keyboarding software program, make sure to take advantage of it. If you are looking for a software program, Mavis Beacon and All The Right Type are popular programs that have student tracking options.

• There are a variety of online typing programs that vary in quality. Make sure to try them out before your students do, so you are familiar with them. All of the following suggested web sites will give your students training and confidence in using all of the letters, numbers and the most common symbols with the proper ten finger touch typing technique. Online typing courses also allow students to practice at home if they have internet access.

  This site has typing activities from beginner levels all the way up to advanced. Check out the top navigational bar for teacher resources, typing resources and other fun typing stuff.

  Nimble Fingers

  This site has 17 lessons to help improve technique and speed. It also has a PDF printable version.

  Keyboarding Practice

  Peter's Online Typing Course. No bells and whistles, but a really good site to "become an accomplished typist in the shortest amount of time possible."

  Peter's Online Typing Course

To find more free online typing sites, use any search engine you have access to and use the words 'free online typing'

Evaluation and Assessment of Keyboarding

• Some ideas and explanations of evaluation and assessment of keyboarding from the curriculum:

  Assessment & Evaluation

• Explanation of keyboarding technique with a useable student technique checklist:

  Technique Checklist

• Before assessing and grading students on keyboarding speed and accuracy you may want to survey or test the class to see where they are and where you would like them to be.

Information Processing 30 Module Learning Objectives

• This is printable PDF version of each modules objectives:

  Information Processing Module Learning Objectives