Keyboarding survey

In the early mists of time when I was a high school sophomore, I took a one semester course called "Personal Typing." The room held about two dozen manual typewriters and four electric models. I can still hear the chant "aaa, lll, kkk, ddd." I topped out at 32 wpm. We had fun "accidentally" typing naughty words.

I am grateful to this day for that class.

The debate about when (or if) to teach keyboading has been background noise in education for about 30 years. I thought it might interesting to ask the kids for their view on the topic so last month I sent an invitation to all 8th and 9th graders to complete the following survey. 

While only about 10% of students to whom the invitation was sent responded, the results are interesting.


Here are the findings:

We received 118 responses (12% response rate), fairly equally divided between 8th and 9th graders.

I would like to take lessons or a class to improve my keyboarding skills:

I've received good information on how to hold my hands ....

I'd be curious to know if teachers and parents agree with this relatively high level of confidence students have in their own skills. I am probably the most concerned about half our kids saying they haven't received any instruction (or have forgotten they received it) about healthy keyboard use.

Personally, I would drop cursive writing instruction and replace it with keyboarding instruction taught by the classroom teacher, with the primary emphasis being on good ergonomics. 

Oh, that's right - our computer labs are now in constant use for testing. I forgot there for a second.

For what it's worth.

From a blog comment by Donna Adams:

I also want to add a comment about your previous post, which was about keyboarding. In my district we decided to include keyboarding standards and benchmarks in our new TILS (Technology & Information Literacy Standards) because it's still the principal means of information input when using computers, since voice recognition and other methods are not yet accurate enough. We were also finding that students who do not have access to computers at home on which to learn and practice keyboarding on their own were falling behind their peers, creating an equity issue and reinforcing the importance of including it in our curriculum in grades 3 through 6. Interestingly, I recently came across three articles that include keyboarding among "essential skills":
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/08/11/ten-skills-every-student-should-learn/
http://www.techlearning.com/Default.aspx?tabid=67&EntryId=3776
http://staffroomhq.com/2012/01/23/10-essential-tech-skills-students-need-to-know/

 Donna A.

Image source: http://walyou.com/old-manual-typewriter-robot-art-sculptures/

Comments

[Bob Martens]

I would wholly support your idea of replacing cursive with keyboarding all the way from the start of 1st grade on up. Get 'em while they're young and don't let them go.

[Kenn Gorman]

Complete support for a mandatory typing / keyboarding class - to include the use of function keys and standard keyboard shortcuts.

Being an "old school" computer user (pre-mouse) I know that using the keyboard for most of my commands save an incredible amount of time.

I am currently using a great typing web site (www.typingclub.com) and have actually had to ask students to NOT use it during class. It creates a scoreboard that each student has access to, and they can see their own score and where they rank among their peers. I have a student who has spent over ten hours on this site - imagine if I could get them as excited about other web sites!

[Janet]

There are a couple of thoughts here.
Thought 1: I am not sure it's developmentally appropriate to start keyboarding as young as first grade. Rudy Steiner (Waldorf Schools) would definitely disagree with keyboarding so young. That being said, we do not need cursive, any more, except to sign checks/credit card receipts. And in our schools, both keyboarding and the unnecessary cursive begin in 3rd grade. To me that seems okay. Be more than okay if we forgot about cursive, but it is what it is.

Thought 2: I spent one day in Typing my senior year in HS, and FFF space JJJ space was beyond me, so I went back into French class. College was hard, but with computers, I can type as fast as anybody, with my own hunt and peck system, (more pecking than hunting--I don't much look at the keys.) I have had no issues ergonomically, altho driving a stick shift gave me a ganglion cyst. I guess, really it all depends.

[Doug Johnson]

Thanks, Bob. Cursive, like so many skills, seems to have more sentimental than practical value today. But I expect such a replacement would meet resistance from many parents and teachers. Ah, well.

Doug

Thanks, Kenn. I don't worry as much about speed as I do ergonomics and, like you suggest, short cuts.

Doug

Hi Janet,

I know quite a few people who have mastered a personal "hunt and peck" style of keyboarding and it seems to work well for them. Perhaps this is a topic I know too little about to be commenting on (although that rarely stops me!) I believe we placed keyboarding in 4th grade here. I know there is that hand size concern.

Doug

[Denise Chambers]

The first thing that you need to do when practicing your fundamental keyboarding skills is to find your comfort. Generally, people work better when they are more comfortable. The same thing applies for keyboarding or typing. You can learn how to type and improve your keyboarding skills better and much quicker when you are comfortable, especially when it comes to your position relative to the keyboard.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Denise,

I think I have found my comfort level by working with a laptop in my recliner!

Thanks for the comment,

Doug