Todays class was all about keyboarding. When I was in school we had keyboarding around 5th or 6th grade I believe. We did the old fashion keyboarding class where you covered the screen so you would not look at the screen while typing. Now that I think about it, I don't think that was the best method for teaching keyboarding. I think it is important for students to learn how to type because they will do a lot of typing when they get older. I do think we need to focus on keyboarding but we also need to focus on traditional handwriting. I do not think we will become a society that will never pick up a pencil or a pen. It is very important that students learn how to write with a pencil at a young age, so I think it is important that there is more emphasis on handwriting at the young ages than on keyboarding. I do think the younger students need to learn how to type but it does not need to be the main focus.
Another good use for keyboarding is for assistive technology. Some students never develop a strong handwriting skill so they may need to use a keyboard to write all of their work. I think the keyboard is a great tool for students who may need this kind of assistance.
Keyboarding is necessary and should be taught at a fairly young age, but I still think the main focus needs to be on traditional handwriting skills.
I agree that the emphasis still needs to be on handwriting at a young age. I see the many values and pros to teaching the keyboarding in the younger grades, but I also see how focusing solely on it during ELA instruction time would be a mistake. I also agree with it being an good assistive technology tool. The only thing I am still wondering after today is why we haven't changed our keyboarding instruction to the easiest and fastest way possible. We have students who struggle with enough other things, why set them up to be at a disadvantage with the hardest possible key placements? I see how it was important to control speed with the old typewriters, but it makes no sense to continue those practices if there is no purpose.
ReplyDeleteKeyboarding is not always an "exciting" topic, but we need to be aware of the challenges of using technology with younger students if it is not addressed. Knowing what is best for students and how this skill can help them in the long run is important.
ReplyDeleteI agree that handwriting skills should not be forgotten. We have to find a way to balance keyboarding and handwriting skills in schools. I also support the notion that keyboarding skills should be introduced at an early age and the pedagogy needs to be less practice/drill and more interactive/engaging for students.
ReplyDeleteI also like keyboarding for assisted technology. I do not think we will ever be rid of pencil and paper. There is some nostalgic purposes for having hand written notes. We started typing when we were in 5th or 5th grade as well. However, once we got to middle school we began wanting fancy pens and paper to write notes to each other. As we move to more 1:1 computing in classrooms, It think it will be interesting to see how many students instead of writing notes use messengers or something similar to "pass" notes.
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