How fast should students keyboard?

Keyboarding is a means of communicating/writing that needs to be integrated into the curriculum. The true use of keyboarding is NOT being able to type something that someone else has written. Remember when we had typewriters, there were secretarial pools who would spend all day typing what an executive scrawled on a piece of paper.

Now, people use keyboarding as a primary form for composing. They write what they think as they think it. This means that it is replacing handwriting. The advantage to keyboarding, however, is that when a student keys a story into a word processor it is in a dynamic work that can be easily changed. This means that revision is simpler. The key to teaching writing is to write and revise and write again. This means that in this environment students can become better writers quicker.

The big question about evaluating keyboarding is what is the optimal speed? How many WPM should we expect of a fourth grader? I say that since keyboarding should be seen as an alternative to handwriting, then we should give them a target of 1 word faster then they can handwrite. I have read that the average 4th grader handwrites about 14 words per minute (WPM). This means that the average 4th grader should be able to keyboard accurately at least 15 WM.

Test your own students. Identify how fast each individual keys and then set individual goals.

What do you think? What are your target speeds? How did you arrive at those speeds? Do you have a logical reason for your target speeds or did they “just sound reasonable”?

Let’s hear from you.

The Beginning of the Keyboarding Research Blog

Here it is!!!!

I have been trying to develop a webpage that will allow for teacher interaction about keyboarding but I never found the discussion group system that I really wanted. It suddenly dawned on me that the blog format would be perfect for the interaction that I wanted to create.

I have always had an interest in keyboarding and the process it takes for someone to master these skills. I remember taking typing when I was in 7th grade. Broke my wrist half way through so I had to complete the class using just one hand. I would have been able to do it better today, after all of my research on keyboarding, but I was just a disabled 12-year-old who wanted to get a passing grade in typing.

So, I used one hand and didn’t learn anything about touch typing. Had to look at the keys to get all of the assignments completed. Ended up typing at about 24 words per minute.

Took it again in 9th grade where the typing teacher (also my football coach) actually taped tacks to a ruler and taped below the space bar so that it would puncture my skin when I let my wrists flop down. He would have a hissy-fit if he saw that I am now using a laptop, keyboarding at about 60 wpm and completely resting my wrists on the laptop computer at either side of the mouse pad. =-)

So what is the essence of teaching keyboarding?

What do you need to do?

What do you do?

What are your challenges?

At what age should students be taught keyboarding?

Should we even worry about keyboarding if the students don’t have regular access to computers for their writing?

What are the elements of good software?

Have you used the portable word processors (Alpha Smart, The Writer, etc.)

What about PDAs?

These and many other questions will be addressed in this blog.