Here at ICT EDU Magazine, we are made up of one fluent touch typer (Tser Lin) and one advanced hunt and peck sort of typist (Marty). If you are considering if you should be encouraging and supporting your students to touch type from an early age…our answer is YES.
Student Perspective by Jacob (Grade 6)
Touch typing is using muscle memory not sight. Muscle memory is when your muscles remember how to do something without thinking about it.
If you can’t touch type it’s called “Hunt and Peck”. This is where you use two or more fingers to type and you’re looking not at the screen but at the keyboard, this can lead to neck pain. That’s one of the reasons that I wanted to learn touch typing.
I wanted to learn how to touch type because of my teacher. Whenever we’re brainstorming ideas we’ll see Tser Lin typing 60wpm (words per minute) and will get the work done in a blitz, so I took up the challenge of touch typing!
Pros: Swift typing, don’t need to concentrate on typing (you could even be watching tv!).
Cons: Time. Depending on how much time you spend each session, you might learn it in a week or a couple of months.
My touch typing journey has been quite fun. I try to practise for half an hour to an hour or more! But practising on tutorial websites isn’t enough so I started touch typing at school when we used the Chromebooks, even at home when I did my homework, and in no time I could type fluently. My speed now averages 20wpm to 30wpm.
Here’s a list of touch typing websites to try:
Teacher Perspective
ICT EDU Magazine recommends TYPING.COM
free uses Google login
blends tutorials with fun games
can easily set up a class and monitor student progress
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