Keyboarding and When to Teach It!

Keyboarding and When to Teach It!

Colleen English (Robert Morris University, USA)
Copyright: © 2008 |Pages: 5
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-881-9.ch082
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Abstract

Over the past two decades typewriting has transformed into keyboarding. Twenty years ago students were taking typewriting classes in high school. No one ever thought to teach a first or second grade student how to type. Times have changed and the need to know how to type has steadily increased. This has also put increased pressure on educators to teach students how to use this new technology properly. Many schools have focused energy on teaching students how to use computers to obtain and produce information; they have paid little attention to teaching them how to type on the keyboard quickly and accurately, and with correct technique. But who decides at what age should we teach keyboarding? Who should be teaching these classes (Starr, 2005)?

Key Terms in this Chapter

Keyboarding: The act of placing information into various types of equipment through the use of a typewriter-like keyboard. Typewriting and keyboarding are not synonymous. The focus of keyboarding is on input rather than output ( Shuller, 1989 ).

Touch Typing: Typing using the sense of touch rather than sight to find the keys. Touch typing places the eight nonthumb fingers in a horizontal row along the middle of the keyboard and has them reach for other keys.

Pangram: Also known as a holoalphabetic sentence; it is a sentence which uses every letter of the alphabet at least once. Pangrams are used to display typefaces and test typewriters. The best-known pangram in English is “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”

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