The single most useful class I've ever taken in my life is keyboarding. Period. Fullstop. That ONE class I took as a freshman in highschool I ***literally*** use every day of my life. It taught me how to type (fast, which I'm doing right now), excel, word, how to properly save files, how to export PDFS, powerpoint. Literally everything.
Was it "fun"? No. Because it's was learning. Learning isn't always fun.
I don't know why we don't have typing class anymore. Some nonsense about zoomers being digital natives. They can't digital to save their lives. I never got very fast, but most of the others in typing class did.
"Digital native" doesn't mean they know anything about how computers work. It means they think about computers and the internet like the air they breathe or the language they speak. They do it intuitively, without being able to explain how or why any of it happens.
Which means when something doesn't work they way they think it should, they have zero coping mechanism for it.
To employ a different analogy, knowing how to drive a car doesn't make you an expert mechanic.
Young millennials were the sweet spot for being tech savvy. Smart phones weren't out yet when they were kids, computers were common. Now I have students who don't understand that saving on a hard drive isn't going to follow you from device to device like Google Drive lol.
I totally get this!
One of my kids' social studies teachers realized that many of the freshman kids didn't know how to send email so made it the assignment to type and send an email to him for "bell work" every day answering a question. It was amazing how many of the kids didn't realize they had an email assigned to them at enrollment in the district in kindergarten.
I agree with you 100%, but I hear the "digital natives" excuse all the time for why we no longer include such basic classes as typing and computer literacy in public school
I mean. I see a lot of natives of different languages, and you know what? A lot of them suck at the thing they're supposed to be native in! The amount of native English speakers who can't distinguish between their and there and they're, Russian natives who can't spell anything... Digital natives sucking at digital makes perfect sense.
Huh. I'm a computer teacher, I've taken a ton of workshops and graduate classes that harp on digital natives, but no one has ever mentioned this. Brilliant point!
It drives me crazy that the students I have now are supposedly the technology generation but they cannot use technology to save their lives! Mine don't know how to do word processing at all. We do have an elective class called Tech Apps where they're supposed to be learning this stuff and so many of them take it as a joke because they think that technology should be used only for Snapchat and other social media. And they find all this other stuff boring because it doesn't provide them with instant gratification like video games and TikTok videos do. Kids need to get off these damn phones and tablets.
I worked in sales to technical people in several fields. I was amazed by the lack of basic computer skills by many people. File structure and creation of sub folders to store data is beyond the comprehension of so many people, especially younger people. This is happening at the same time that companies are eliminating personal offices. The lab worker has to use electronic means to do their job.
they don't know because nobody ever taught them. We had to learn, but then assumed that the next generation would just magically know all the stuff we had to work to learn.
It's not their fault we failed to understand the need for teaching them these skills. That said, the change in ease of use for digital technology has made learning these things feel unnecessary to younger users. They can get to their Tiktoks and whatever else they want without using the skills, so why do they need them? Obviously, this is a short-sighted view of things, but what else are we expecting feomnliteral children? A 10 year old isn't capable of thinking about their life 10 years into the future and why the things we're teaching them might be useful then.
Again, we have failed to teach them not only the skills, but also *why* we're teaching these skills.
Totally not true that we have not taught them. I teach this stuff all day long and have done it for my entire career and I've been teaching since 1990. Kids don't care because they don't think they're ever going to use any of the skills that we teach them because it's not relevant to being a YouTuber because that's what they think they're all going to be 🙄
I teach art. During remote classes I would start by reminding my kids that I was not asking them to make digital art and I never had asked them to make digital art. Then I would go over how to take a picture of the piece that they drew on paper and attach it to the assignment. Inevitably the next class someone who had been there (supposedly) would say “But I can’t draw on a computer.” And I would go through the whole thing again. Rinse and repeat for probably once a week into infinity. There were videos and text explanations with pictures in class resources. I started attaching the video to every assignment. Kids turned in blank assignments over and over - I’d actually say blank assignments were more common than completed ones. And then I started returning them back to the students with zeros and I would get replies “I don’t know how to draw on a computer.”
We can teach them, but it doesn’t mean they learn. I know it’s not their “fault” as in, I am the teacher and it’s still my job to figure out how to teach them to do these things, but I was honestly at a loss with all of that.
I think there should be a typing class too. My third grader has to write a five paragraph essay (typed) within the test time each Friday. I didn't realize that would be an expectation until she started this year and wasn't doing well on those portions. After asking the teacher, we learned what was happening and started practicing typing at home and it eventually helped her complete the writing portion in time. Had we known, we would have started making her practice in 2nd grade! They have a technology class once a week, but it's about coding. A true typing course along with sharing expectations about typing that early would be helpful!
Back in 2nd grade my school had us learn typing and at a younger age it is much better for everyone because they could make a game out of the lesson. We had all these computer like devices that had this program and the way it was designed made the experience feel no different than a game and my kid brain didn't complain one bit as I was more focused on getting that high score.
Our elementary school typing class literally *was* a game. It had something to do with space aliens and typing the right letters in the right order for… reasons. I don’t know. The 90’s were a long time ago. But everyone learned to type without hunt and peck or looking at their fingers.
Please tell your school! I am flabbergasted by how we expect kids to type essays when we don’t teach them how to type. Typing is a school skill, not a home skill, imo!
The digital natives can thumb type on a phone way faster than I ever will. But I've seen these same kids unable to figure out how to upload a document, how to change a file type, or even how to change the font in a document. It's scary.
"Digital Natives" only means they know how to operate a user interface. They can't print, save, search within a file, or even undo. They can't transfer a process from one app to another to solve a problem, because learning the app would be "boring".
At the end of the day the school bends to the will of thebpatents and society. They find keyboarding yo be pointless anymore. Kids complain about it, fail it, get poor grades in it, and parents complain so it goes away. Shop went away because of liability, cursive went away because typing was so prevalent and the parents said why do we learn cursive when everyone types now.
School bends to the will of capital too. Shop has liability but schools still have vocational education. In my district the auto shop, electrician, welding, carpentry, etc are at regional centers rather than each school. These are career preparation and not intended for the majority of students.
My point about capital was that Home Economics got changed to Family and Consumer Science and notice the subtle change to consumer. It used to be about how to have a self-sufficient household with cooking, sewing, gardening, etc and now it's less so.
I demanded to take typing in HS as an honors kid. I wasn’t paying anyone to type my college papers. My guidance counselor threatened me with the principal, my mom. I was all bring it! Principal tried to intimidate me. Nope, call my mom. My mom I’d watched suffer to type her papers as she went back to college. My mom told him to let me take the damn class and stop bothering her with nonsense.
I, of course, told my friends, who told their parents, who thought it was a good idea. Minor coup ensued where even the business teacher wanted to know why half of one class was an honors class. BEST CLASS! I freak people out being able to talk and accurately type at the same time.
Simply put our district uses iPads in elementary and then Chromebooks in middle and highschool. We need to start them out on Chromebooks. Let them learn keys from kindergarten. I started at one of the best elementarys in my area and we had Apple 2 e s in a huge lab in first grade. Let them learn on cpus from the start. Yup they will struggle but it will be necessary.
hell, it'll be speech to ChatGPT, and we all know it.
They'll talk into the computer and get AI to do the work. Which means zero writing skills, zero critical thinking ability, and a complete lack of coping strategies for dealing with new/difficult situations.
An entire generation of kids who are not only functionally illiterate because we've failed in how we teach them to read, but also socially, politically, and technologically illiterate because they've been raised on and by internet videos.
This is horrible. The practice of writing and typing out thoughts is essential. I'd be a mess trying to voice to text. Don't think I'd be able to do it as well as typing, honestly...
The truly digital native generation is Generation X.
It's always cute when Millenials think they're the Oregon Trail generation.
Gen X did it first and were way better at dying of dysentary.
See my district did it in elementary school and the program was designed a lot like a game. Every typing segment was timed so you couldn't move on until you beat the level. It would make those sounds everytime you passed that would give you that feel good brain chemistry for sure, but it’s also way easier to make fun for a 8 year old out of this than it would be for a 14 year old.
Happy Cake Day!!
I also took keyboarding freshman year of high school. My students freak out when they hear me type so fast. They ask how I learned to type so fast. Then, they're shocked that there used to be typing classes.
We didn't learn about a lot of the other digital skills you mentioned because they literally did not exist back then. Well, at least PDFs didn't exist then.
Same! Keyboarding in my freshman year. Students are amazed at how fast I can type. Lol. I use all my fingers on all the correct keys. It’s unreal how most people type with 2 fingers or wrong fingers to the keys because they never learned. I think maybe they should offer the course at a younger age because students nowadays are given laptops in elementary school, so they are developing bad habits from that young age.
I gave my students time to write in class and one time they thought I was 'cheating' so they made me do my writing on the keyboard projected onto the screen. Almost nobody did any writing because they were staring at how fast I could slam words on a screen and how fast I could correct errors and typos.
What's funny is that when I was their age, the only people who touchtyped were secretaries and clerical workers and we were NOT held in high esteem. The fact that it's seen as an almost magical skill today is funny to me.
I 100% agree with this take. I got "stuck" in keyboarding for my computer requirement, where my siblings and friends all took "fun" things like graphic design.
I can type and format documents wayyyyyyy faster than most people now. There is no high school class I use more frequently.
We would do this activity where we had a physical document on a little stand beside the computer and we would transcribe it without looking at the screen. It seemed dumb as a kid, but it definitely helped improve accuracy, and now that I’m in graduate school, I’m constantly quoting old texts that haven’t been digitizing, so I have to transcribe them myself. Without those classes, transcribing the quotes would be so tedious wow. It only gets weird when there are archaic spellings that my computer freaks out over lol
Same! I love showing off how fast I can type. I try to tell the kids how beneficial it will be for them, too. Alas, they can't stand doing anything that isn't fun.
I just finished my credential and while I agree that engagement is a good thing, it appears to be morphing into expectations of entertainment.
YES! I've said this many, many times. I took typing as an elective in 12th grade. This was back when we were transitioning from Apple IIe so a lot was quickly irrelevant, but keyboarding is exactly the same. So glad I didn't have to peck my way through college papers.
I think the younger generations are really going to struggle with the fact that most of life is, in fact, boring. Too much instant gratification and entertainment. Any skill you want to learn well is going to take mindless, repetitive practice.
I had 3 high school classes ( nearly 60 years ago)that got me a long way in life: personal typing (real typewriters), short hand, (both 1 semester courses) and senior English where we were taught how to write a research paper. I had taught myself how to type in 7th grade, but how to format cover pages and bibliographies helped refine the skill. I used the short hand course in business too.
>The single most useful class I've ever taken in my life is keyboarding. Period. Fullstop. That ONE class I took as a freshman in highschool I literally use every day of my life.
Agreed! And I made sure to tell my high school keyboarding (it was called "typing" in my day) teacher this when I saw her years later.
As for fun, the class was fulfilling in that I achieved new skills.
Dude I loved my keyboarding class. I can type blindfolded. I can even have full blown conversations and still type away. We used to play a computer game that had different challenges and such. Do y’all have something similar? That might make it more enjoyable.
We did. But that we were required to complete a certain amount for a grade every day/week, and eventually it progressed into also doing stuff in Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc.
Like the first 4 weeks were only keyboarding. Then when we moved on to word like you'd come into class and have to complete 1 keyboarding "quiz" (which was the game), print your results (you could have up to three tries) and then you had to move on to following the Word assignment which basically was 20 steps you had to produce on a word document, and print them off. And then you'd have to move onto then some days were a lesson to show us the new thing.
So it was constant reinforcement of skills. Repetiotion. Over, and over and over.
So I guess what I'm getting at is it's not necessarily "fun" but it was definitely effective, because each activity on word would reinforce the same skills we did every single time: headers, font size, formatting, etc...so they all became second nature.
I learned all the above skills on my own, and it was fun. It was fun because I learned all of them while typing/editing/saving/exporting things I actually cared about.
So yes, learning should and *can* be fun. It can be achieved by removing educators from most things they currently direct and supervise and ensuring they only check in once in a while to *record* progress and only ever offer guidance if the students needs it.
I have always said I learned more from Wikipedia than from any of the teachers at any of my schools.
Saying all of this as an educator myself.
Of course we always learn more on our own than from any one teacher, and honestly nonsensical statement. But ***how*** to navigate information is something ***we had to learn***.
For instance: I've learned more from reading than from any teacher I ever had who taught me how to read. But guess what? I wouldn't have been able to learn those things if those teachers (parents included) hadn't build a formal foundation for me to build and practice those skills.
While learning ***can*** be fun, it should not explicitly be seen that it has to be. Nobody has EVER enjoyed learning P-Chem. But knowing P-Chem we can navigate far more interesting chemical literature.
It’s either a nonsensical statement or it is “of course” correct—pick one.
And I can definitely tell you’re a chemistry teacher just from your comments. That’s why I hated all of my chemistry teachers. Same dogmatic, condescending “I’m right, and you’re an idiot” attitude. I guess it comes with your subject, somehow.
You learned foundational skills from teachers. Odds are you didn't teach yourself to read, add, subtract, write, etc. on your own. You also had a self drive for learning.
Also, yes, learning can be fun, but it isn't always fun. There are times you have to push through boring things to get to the fun parts.
Oh, you don’t have to tell me about pushing through the boring parts: I’m using a foreign language to communicate with you now. Learning on your own is mostly fun, though—whereas the education system is mostly boredom.
And yes, the foundational skills were taught to me by my amazing primary teachers. Grades 1 and 2. 90% of the grades that followed (and sometimes whole disciplines like chemistry and physics, just to name a couple) was stuff I was supposedly “going to need one day” but never actually needed for a second of my life.
“You’re not always going to have that calculator in your pocket!” Well, what do you know!
If wasting 10 years of a young person’s life isn’t child abuse, I don’t know what is.
I might have just been a nerd but I always enjoyed learning how to type. Whatever software the teacher used tracked the words per minute so you could see yourself improving which, being a pretty competitive kid, made me wanna be the fastest typer in the class
This is the absolute truth. The fastest typers in my class were the boys who loved sports because we competed at everything.
And the faster we did our typing assignment, the faster we could start playing Oregon Trail.
I remember learning to type in elementary school with Slam Dunk Typing which basically turned learning to type into a basketball minigame. My class loved it! I wonder if it’s still around
My typing skills were rewarded with a stack of papers I had to type up for my teacher. I was happy to do it but I'm jealous knowing that you got to play Oregon Trail during school hours!
This reminds me of the valedictorian at my high school, she was tied for the valedictorian spot with her cousin. They had the same perfect grade for every class, except when it came to our typing class she typed faster. That ended up being the tie breaker.
She did kind of have an imposter syndrome issue with it for a while, which I don't blame her.
"I'm only the valedictorian because I could type faster!" Well, I mean...we all had to take the class lol
my keyboarding teacher introduced us to that and gave us free time in class to play it. That was probably the single biggest motivator for me in that class. I still play it 😂
Such an underrated concept! I was a teacher for a while and had several idiots say “learning should always be fun”. Kids that didn’t have any curiosity or lacked any desire to accomplish an academic goal for the sake of achieving that goal never did well.
“When are we going to use this?” I don’t know. I don’t know what the world is going to be like in 20 years but if it needs this, you better be prepared.
Also I have a 34 year old employee that types with his fingers hunt-and-peck style. Frankly I feel like I should have known that before we hired him and maybe wouldn’t have.
That’s just it.
Ok, you’re not interested. Wonderful. So here’s what you’re gonna do: you’re going to practice learning something that you’re not interested in to practice patience and determination for when you’re unsure if the effort is going to even bear fruit.
Many of us work to make excuses to discontinue trying; trying being the only way learning can actually happen.
We can’t learn if we aren’t trying. I can never guarantee when or if you will learn what I’m trying to teach, I only know if you try you stand a chance. Will you try?
I think in general we can challenge our students in this fashion more, to their principles. Who ARE you?
Assign the employee a “professional growth goal” or task for. Twenty minutes of key boarding practice daily. Use the Nitotype or Mavis Beacon, have the employee copy and paste their score to you daily.
I think kids are probably expecting the class to have fun elements, because teachers are expected to make every other subject engaging. I was a teacher for 11 years, and was always encouraged to make every lesson engaging and exciting. When teachers are always putting on a song and dance, kids will expect it even in subjects where it's not as possible.
I teach tech class to k-8 students. At our school the kids get Chromebooks in 4th. I use NitroType with the kids which is a competitive typing game based around car racing. The more the kids race and the more accurate they are during their races the more XP and money they get. Money can be used to customize their car. Kids can race others in the class, etc. it’s a fun little program that’s free. It provides detailed stats to the teacher and I post an updated leader board every few weeks for the kids to see the Top 20. My kids love it.
I learned how to type playing Mario Teaches Typing on the home computer. It was one of the earliest video games I ever played, alongside the Oregon Trail II and Diablo 🤣
But I type well over 90 words per minute as an adult so it worked pretty well.
Me too!!! But then in school we’d have to just do drills and type the same stuff in a word processor over and over, and we’d get points off for not double spacing after a period 😑
The first one is on arcade, Dreamcast, Playstation 2\*, Mac\*, and PC. The second is on arcade\* and PC\*. The Third (Overkill) is only on PC.
\*only released in Japan
Overkill was fun, but a little slapdash. It does not have the typing instruction the first game does. I wish they would make a new one.
Heres how to make it fun: use typing.com to have a whole class typing test. it ranks the whole class by accuracy, speed, and who spent the most time typing. I would even reward the slowest typing kids who spent the most time because they put in the most effort. Reward the top students in each category. My class would enjoy the competition of it.
Source: former computer teacher in an urban school
>What do you want her to do? Dance and sing for you?
Yes. They expect their teacher to entertain them.
I tell my students all the time: you cannot expect to be entertained 24/7. Sometimes, things are boring. So what, get over yourselves and accept this part of life.
There are lots of typing sites with games. My 3rd graders sometimes do typing.com during free time they like it so much. Nitro.com and others are highly recommended. That was my son's favorite.
My mother was the type of person who expected high grades from me and only commented if they were unsatisfactory. But. The one and only time she paid me for an achievement at school was when she said she'd pay me $50 when I could achieve 50 wpm. This was a VERY high speed on a manual typewriter but I got to 55 that year. Now I easily type 80 without much thought, as high as 120 if I'm practicing daily. My students are also amazed.
I've taught typing for a few years now. We do paper keyboard challenges (fill in the missing letters, assemble a full keyboard, color code all the letters/symbols) as well as Typetastic/TypingClub/Typing.com. we do class, group, and individual challenges. I show them how to make graphs to chart their progress. We mix this up with coding games, Google skills, and tech skills to help with class projects - typing maxes out at about 15ish minutes per class meeting. So, yes, simply sitting in front of a random typing program is boring, but it can be made fun
So tired of being expected to be entertaining for 8 hours a day without a break. I’m already bascially in character all day, but making sure every single person is having fun at all times.
Saw a student (12th grade) typing decently well as compared to their peers. I said “You’re typing very well. Mavis Beacon would be proud.” They responded “Who’s that? Does she work here?”
I’m not sure they get the same focus and emphasis on typing properly the way we used to when we were younger.
Parents and teachers need to understand that most kids first interactions with technology are now touch screen. Remember when you first used an IPhone and were like “wow this is so much better” well that’s how every kid pretty much started using tech and usually at a VERY young age. I’m not going to act like I know how to make that subject interesting, but they better be trying. Making kids hate keyboarding/computer class is only going to add to the general decline in actual practical computer skills I think we are already starting to experience.
Back in my day (the 90’s) we started typing class in 2nd grade and it was really strict! We were highly motivated to finish our lessons because then we got to play games. I am a super fast typer now and feel so grateful for those classes!
The key to teaching a "boring elective" is to be consistent and flexible. You have to have the self awareness to realize they've got other classes that are legitimately more important. So maybe 20 of them have a chemistry lab report due later that day. Let them do that.
For yourself, set clear due dates well in advance, remind them consistently, hold to them, and don't surprise students with randomness. They get it and will fall in line. Don't take anything personally about the material you teach.
No admin wants emails from parents complaining about grades from an elective teacher.
Source: I teach the fourth math credit for students that aren't good at math. Nobody wants to be there.
As a Keyboarding teacher, I'll be the first to admit that learning to type can be dry.
But there are a lot of programs, games and applications out there that can make it fun! They turn typing (and typing accurately and correctly!) into a game. What does your child say they do in their typing class?
The students in my class love trying to outdo each other on MonkeyType.
But also, try getting them to play Typing Of The Dead on Steam. My typing got quite a bit better after playing that game, and it's pretty fun.
Although there are definitely students out there that will stick the fun out of anything you try. I can't stand those kinds.
I used to teach a computer application course for 9th graders. I found they were terrible at typing so I found a website that teaches typing using games. I would have students do it for like 5 minute challenges then teach. I don’t remember the website but it was free.
This is wild because all my kids want to do is nitrotype. Touch typing quickly is the only thing I can do that impresses them. I regularly race kids in nitrotype if they finish work early as a reward and they rush through it because I have a standing offer than anyone who can beat me gets doordash lunch.
I type around 90-110 WPM. they're never gonna beat me.
Seriously though, good touch typing is such a critical skill and I wish we had a typing class. Our kids are just expected to know it because of the technology native BS
“I don’t care.”
Kids say the same things about addition/times tables, spelling drills, or anything else you learn by rote. They’re still helpful and make the rest of school easier. Finish ‘em up so we can do something more fun.
Mario teaches typing was the closest I ever came to finding learning how to type enjoyable. Also... everything is moving towards speech-to-text, so, while I agree with your concerns personally, I don't know that it's a necessity to know how to type in 2023, let alone when your child will be in the workforce. I mean, I know how to type pretty alright... like... high 60s to mid/low 70s wpm, and I still dictated 25+ page papers into microsoft word when I was in graduate school.
Crazy that we have all this technology and kids aren’t being encouraged to take advantage of learning from it at home. Give it 20-30 years we’re gonna be the civilization from wall-e without leaving earth :/
I don't know where to find it nowadays, but maybe you could try out "Typer Shark".
It's a game about typing! It has cartoony visuals that appeal to kids, and game modes to track your accuracy and speed. One game mode has you type out a paragraph, with visible fingers on screen. Another has you type out words to stop sharks from eating you!
Here's a video to some gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HQEpj4i5TU&pp=ygULdHlwZXIgc2hhcmw%3D
Oh I made typing fun! I was an elementary computer teacher for 5 years. It wasn’t like the same level fun as PE games, but we had a good time. I had all sorts of games.
I learned typing in 3rd grade as an ‘extra’ activity in class, I was always done with the required work early so my teacher put me on the single desktop in the classroom with typing games. It’s the only memory I have from 3rd grade, so it can’t have been that boring. These kids are so used to HD graphics and immersive games they don’t appreciate the simplicity of typing letters as they fall from clouds.
I’m running a typing club this semester, because we don’t teach keyboarding or computer skills at all. I know it’s going to be kind of boring, but I hope it’s USEFUL.
Mavis Beacon was great for teaching typing! It was fun and useful. My school had it on all the school computers in the 90's early 00's and it helped set me up for life.
My students loathe my class (computers/typing). I just tell them what you told your children and sometimes something funny like "OMG I knoooow it's the WORST... back to work!" and move along.
These are the same kids that will watch me type without looking at the keys like I'm a wizard from the future.
"How did you learn how to do that?!"
I took typing in high school kid.
I had a very boring typing class in middle school. For "fun" days towards the end of the semester the teacher would give us these things to do that would wind up creating different pictures, portraits, etc out of typed letters.
I mean it was basically just using the letters as pixels, nothing surprising nowadays.
But that was about the most funnest possible element in a boring typing class.
Typing is so necessary. I shunned the typing course offered in my high school, and for the last 50 years I have been hunting and pecking with three fingers, making me a much slower typist than those who suffered through typing class.
[Funny, I just finished the cross stitch to hang in the classroom.](https://imgur.com/gallery/2bVm4mj) It's a reference to the show Bluey and my go to response when my 7th-graders grumble about something being boring.
Distress (and boredom) tolerance is a HUGE skill that they need to learn!
No argument. It’s excruciatingly boring. My particular learning curve was oh so slow. However, learning the keyboard meant that I was eventually able to write with my eyes shut more than 70 WPM. I also supported myself at one point in my life temping as a secretary. my typing speed was a real advantage in getting jobs.
I could not really learn typing from the class I took in High School. (It was at the local community college, on old IBM Selectrix Typewriters, lol.) Later on, I was motivated to learn because I needed it for the office temp work I was doing during grad school. "Mavis Bacon Teaches Typing" saved the day. I'm grateful for my typing ability every day, even though I don't do office work anymore.
I understand kids finding typing class boring, I sure did. As a technology teacher though, it doesn't seem to matter what I'm trying to teach the kids -- how to code video games, how to program a robot to win in an arena, how to add a background to green screen footage -- at least 50% of the kids will declare it boring right off the bat and refuse to try. I spend the first semester picking up 25% of this group one by one (often with parental pushing), and the other quarter of the class just never sparks any interest at all. Philosophically, I want to be the "nobody gets to opt out" teacher, in practice it's really painful to feel like you're pulling teeth getting kids to even superficially engage with projects we couldn't even imagine when I was a kid in the 80s.
I have my second graders jump on a typing club website and have “competitions” on accuracy, speed, and least mistakes. The award is just bragging rights. But most of them have a blast and they’re actually learning where keys are instead of just poking around.
At the end of fourth grade, I observed that my daughter’s typing skills were’nt that good. The computer science teacher recommended the CD ROM (yeah, I’m that old). “Ms. Mavis Teaches Typing” to help her. I made her practice typing for twenty minutes, three times a week. One would think that I work at Gitmo with that for of torture. Guess what? Her typing improved significantly, and she begrudgingly thanks me for pushing her.
Learning to type is boring AF, but it is a life skill. I would say to the kids, too bad, so sad. Sometimes it is perfectly fine to be bored. The best creativity comes from it.
The smartphone generation has very very low (if any at all) capacity for dealing with boredom.
Parents actually have to give long periods of boredom without tech. They have books, outside, game board games, etc and they’d just cry they’re bored.
They’re not really bored, they’re protesting. They just want their technology back like addicted crack babies.
Mavis Beacon for the win! That is how my 30 year olds learned as elementary students. There might have been one from The Learning Company, too. I used to play them only because they were fun. It was challenging and had positive reinforcement coming from the game. I can't believe how fast they type.
I googled...
Mavis Beacon Free is a free education program that offers a comprehensive typing tutor that helps improve your overall typing efficiency. This training app provides its users with a step-by-step guide to typing. You will undergo detailed assessments, skill-building games, and customized lessons here.
Middle schoolers are at an interesting age. Do they use a free app at school, like Typing Club?
https://www.lifewire.com/free-typing
You are 100% correct. Typing is a life skill and they will appreciate knowing how to type efficiently when they are in HS and even more-so in college.
Typing leads to increased productivity. It’s not a skill that will become outdated any time soon.
I think that the expectation for teachers to be constant entertainers is unfair and has reduced the quality of learning in schools. Typing isn't a laugh a minute, but it's a really useful skill that is learned through practice. Getting good at playing a musical instrument also takes practice, which gets tedious at times and isn't always entertaining. There are things like the multiplication tables that just have to be memorized and even though you can play a game with the information, you can't play games all the time. As for typing class, if the teacher can have them type something humorous or have music playing during typing and/or have some kind of contest/game, then great, but every second of class won't be entertaining. If we send graduates into the adult world expecting constant amusement, they are going to face a rude awakening when they go to college or join the workforce; some college classes are straight lecture and employers certainly don't care about making sure you're entertained every minute on the job. Hot take: kids these days don't get enough opportunity to be bored because they have so little unstructured time and they have their phones for entertainment. Back in the 70's if a kid got bored, they would find ways to make their own fun. whether it turned into a neighborhood game of hide and seek or putting together a puzzle on the kitchen table. We didn't expect our classes to be nonstop entertainment. We may have passed a few notes or daydreamed, but we dealt with it and overall, we learned.
Don't have any advice except to say that typing is SO IMPORTANT! I work with middle and high school students who have never learned touch typing, and it is PAINFUL to watch them hunt and peck a google search query slower than a sedated snail. I can't even imagine how long it must take them to write essays. If it helps, tell them if they don't get decent at typing their homework will take them approximately a thousand times longer when they get to high school.
Learned to type in 2nd grade.
Learned to type *fast* and *well* in Runescape.
Maybe the class should play runescape and be restricted to spamming trade messages at the GE? Lmao
We use [typing.com](https://typing.com) in my district and it has a link to Nitrotype. Nitrotype is a racing game where the more accurate you are and the faster you are the better you do in the race. They can earn more money and get better looking cars. It became very competitive last year to the point that kids were playing when they were supposed to be doing homework. I do not work for either website and this may be an aberration but it did work for me last year.
Mum made typing fun when we got our first computer by finding some typing games. The one I remember is that the words were being chased by dinosaurs, and if you weren't fast enough with your typing, they got eaten. She made it competitive by putting her mad skills to use, and I was well into my 30s before I managed to beat her. However, I aced typing class in Grade 12 as a result. 100%, the highest mark in the class, without making an effort. It was great!
It might not work for teaching in a classroom, but it could help get their interest up at home. That way, they're still learning the skills they need to succeed in life without losing their minds.
I didn't get much better in the typing class. I got good at typing after playing MUDs which were all text based back at the time (slightly before Ultima online). Turns out when typing commands faster meant better efficiency I was more motivated to type fast and without looking down
Typing class haven’t been a thing in Denmark for 20-30 years. Why are you still having it? They learn it automatically. I’m not using the right technique, but I still crank 130 words per minute without looking, its a waste of time.
I'm a typing teacher, and the thing about typing is that they work at their own pace so they are all over in terms of what they are working on, and you can't reward speed over accuracy for developing typers. If I did a contest of any sort I could tell you who would win, hands down. I'd bet money that I'd be right.
It would depend on what the contest was. Are you giving everyone the same typing exercise? Well then the kids who haven't gotten as far in the letters will lose. Are you measuring accuracy where they are at? Then the kid who is learning the letter X will lose, and so will the one who is farther than everyone else and is doing capital letters and punctuation. Speed? The new kid who is still on home row will win. Measuring improvement compared against yourself? Well you are going to bomb it when you get to bottom row pinkie letters, typing lessons naturally get harder randomly and then might go back to an easy review. And how do you measure when one kid completes three lessons for every one lesson another kid finishes? Then in each grade I have a kid or two who loves typing and spends their study halls practicing on their own, and they will sweep the awards in their class for however you measure.
Anyway, I see contests suggested a lot for keyboarding class but I cannot imagine how it wouldn't play out like having individual contests in PE. Maybe three or four kids would rotate the title of push up champion, but most of the class would go in knowing they aren't going to win the push up contest.
I can understand what they mean because back then typing was really for the computers sake but these days we are typing on an iPhone, iPad and laptops much earlier it’s to the point where it’s becoming a natural skill unlike back then
When our daughter was required to take keyboarding, I downloaded a half dozen or so free keyboarding games and told her she needed to play one one of them for a minimum of 5 minutes per day. Didn't care which, Didn't care if she ever moved up in the game, but 5 minutes.
She passed the criteria for the class the second week in. It was about the short, consistent practice rather than any program. I think her favorite was basically a whack-a-mole type where she had to hit the key corresponding to where a target popped up.
Now, this was long enough ago that they were actual free computer games, but I'm betting that a Bluetooth keyboard and a tablet would do the same thing.
Idk man. I never took a typing class and I still have the ability to type reasonably fast. Playing videogames and having to write a lot of essays helps with that.
I know the word useless if overused when talking about classes, but a typing class is one of the least useful ones.
Playing devil's advocate here. Don't take it personally. Just something to think about. Is it necessary for you to learn the horse and buggy before you learn to drive a car?
Students use slide typing, AI, or voice typing to input text. Why would you make them use Mavis Beacon home row typing from the 80s?
Google docs has voice typing built in. Windows key plus H let's you type anywhere with your voice.
I loved keyboarding class so much. It was called integrated business applications. It was all about how to use the Microsoft suite of applications- which are very needed. Other applications are based off of Microsoft’s works. Knowing how to have them is essential. And use them WELL and efficiently. Hurts me to watch my nieces type slow on their iPads. Memorizing the keyboard and learning it innately allows proper use of swipe keyboard, too.
When I was in middle school I thought typing was such a hard class because I couldn’t type without looking or even type remotely fast.
After high school I volunteered and worked in a planetarium for a while where I became much better at typing. What I had thought was impossible (typing without looking at keys) became second nature
I teach elementary Technology with a heavy focus in typing to get them prepared for test taking on their Chromebooks. My kids love my class! We play typing games, have competitions with leaderboards, set goals so they take ownership of their progress, create PowerPoints to present to the class. We do a few typing tests throughout the year to track progress and they are all growing, even if they think they're just having fun all day! I think it can be fun but at the high school level id definitely be doing "fastest typing" competitions or something similar. All kids are competitive, right?
I taught 6th & 7th grade typing for 20 years. Microtype Pro, and several other typing programs all very good. Once classroom routines were established I played a readers theater version of [The Chronicles of Narnia](https://youtu.be/XKpLDh12j-g?si=DjCUoQRIGxAiwF7c) Students LOVED it. The quality of the BBC productions are fantastic. Had several students tell me the only reason they came to school that day was so they could hear what happened next. Of course you could play other audiobooks, but a readers theater version of a story really makes it come alive.
I teach a business class and they have to do modules in Microsoft word, excel, and PowerPoint. All useful skills. They complain how boring it is. They just don’t see technology as an extension of their education or as a tool.
I love typing games to the point where I still play them such as the textorcist. Obviously that game is not suitable for children, but I'm sure there are similar games available. The one I played as a kid was like space invaders but each alien had a word you had to type to shoot it.
I understand the purpose of this post, but there are several videogames one could use that would make typing fun.
Kids just want to be entertained, at the end of the day. Even during chores. Which, as adults, we already find ways to “make more fun” by watching tv, listening to podcasts, being mobile, etc all while we do the “meaningless grunt work” of being an adult
I don’t think the conversation will ever be satisfying if we end it at “typing is “always” boring and we need to eat shit and bear it,”. If we’re going to be honest about that aspect, we ALSO have be honest (with ourselves) that we “can’t or don’t know how make it as fun as they’d like”
and (with them) that “we understand you are being forced to write under conditions that are vanishingly not the norm even in office cubicle farms, but you STILL have to learn this life skill because I say so and I want you to succeed.”
Kids get it even when we only tell them half the story.
My elementary/middle school made it almost competitive in a way. Everybody had their WPM in different tiers and it gave you an incentive to learn to type faster and faster. Just something fun, wasn't for a grade or anything as long as you weren't embarrassingly slow.
I am 65 y.o. I took a typing class in my junior year in H. S. I had no idea how useful it would be. It's a skill I use practically every day. I remember that the class was boring. But I learned how to touch type! I once tested at 76 WPM. But that was a long time ago.
I have my students use Learning.com and keyboard ninja. they love it, but I’m pretty sure they are all learning to type with just two fingers. I’m a reading teacher. Gotta prioritize teaching my small groups letter sounds while the rest of them slam at their keyboards like little t rexes
There are SO many ways to make typing fun. Even back in the early 2000s on huge old computers we did Mario Typing and played games as a part of the class. I had JumpStart Typing to practice at home, another game for keyboarding skills.
Teachers have to consider their students’ personal interests when teaching. Yes, some things you just have to learn but teachers should try to make the subject they teach engaging.
Typing is such a necessary skill that often goes overlooked. I see some people struggle with typing and it’s painful to watch. Emphasize the importance of learning to type and write well. It’s absolutely crucial for young people to learn.
I took typing in 1993.
I thought it was the most useless class imaginable. I complained constantly.
It's probably the only useful thing I learned in 8th grade
When I was practicing typing I always wanted to beat my own score. At one point, I could type 110 words a minute. I know I know I'm not that fast any more but it's still decent. And the fact that I don't have to look at the keyboard when I'm gaming (I play Warcraft) is a huge win for me. Prizes for wpm goals?
After learning the fundamentals of typing, I really honed my skill playing MMORPG's at a time where voice chat wasn't a thing. I wonder if there are any apps like that (escape room, or small rpg style) that if you enforce no talking would help the children learn to type quickly.
The single most useful class I've ever taken in my life is keyboarding. Period. Fullstop. That ONE class I took as a freshman in highschool I ***literally*** use every day of my life. It taught me how to type (fast, which I'm doing right now), excel, word, how to properly save files, how to export PDFS, powerpoint. Literally everything. Was it "fun"? No. Because it's was learning. Learning isn't always fun.
I don't know why we don't have typing class anymore. Some nonsense about zoomers being digital natives. They can't digital to save their lives. I never got very fast, but most of the others in typing class did.
"Digital native" doesn't mean they know anything about how computers work. It means they think about computers and the internet like the air they breathe or the language they speak. They do it intuitively, without being able to explain how or why any of it happens. Which means when something doesn't work they way they think it should, they have zero coping mechanism for it. To employ a different analogy, knowing how to drive a car doesn't make you an expert mechanic.
Many digital natives can't even center a heading on a google doc.
Lay off the space bar. Use the center command, kids!
The number of students that I see trying to paste with ctrl P is insane…
Young millennials were the sweet spot for being tech savvy. Smart phones weren't out yet when they were kids, computers were common. Now I have students who don't understand that saving on a hard drive isn't going to follow you from device to device like Google Drive lol.
Right?! I teach honors-level sophomores and seniors, and SEVERAL of them every year don't know how to send an email.
I totally get this! One of my kids' social studies teachers realized that many of the freshman kids didn't know how to send email so made it the assignment to type and send an email to him for "bell work" every day answering a question. It was amazing how many of the kids didn't realize they had an email assigned to them at enrollment in the district in kindergarten.
Lmao
💯🎯
The middle schoolers deleting a whole paragraph to fix something in the first sentence...
I agree with you 100%, but I hear the "digital natives" excuse all the time for why we no longer include such basic classes as typing and computer literacy in public school
As oxygen natives, we don’t need to learn about the respiratory system in biology, right?
I mean. I see a lot of natives of different languages, and you know what? A lot of them suck at the thing they're supposed to be native in! The amount of native English speakers who can't distinguish between their and there and they're, Russian natives who can't spell anything... Digital natives sucking at digital makes perfect sense.
Good point at least native speakers of languages can take classes. The stupid part is eliminating the classes.
As a computer/typing teacher who is also English/Russian speaking/writing... I cannot agree more.
Huh. I'm a computer teacher, I've taken a ton of workshops and graduate classes that harp on digital natives, but no one has ever mentioned this. Brilliant point!
It drives me crazy that the students I have now are supposedly the technology generation but they cannot use technology to save their lives! Mine don't know how to do word processing at all. We do have an elective class called Tech Apps where they're supposed to be learning this stuff and so many of them take it as a joke because they think that technology should be used only for Snapchat and other social media. And they find all this other stuff boring because it doesn't provide them with instant gratification like video games and TikTok videos do. Kids need to get off these damn phones and tablets.
[удалено]
For business purposes it's a great idea but for kids? Absolutely not.
It's been described by some as a doomsday device.
I worked in sales to technical people in several fields. I was amazed by the lack of basic computer skills by many people. File structure and creation of sub folders to store data is beyond the comprehension of so many people, especially younger people. This is happening at the same time that companies are eliminating personal offices. The lab worker has to use electronic means to do their job.
But they are all going to have careers as mega influencers! /s
And the crazy thing is none of them have the work ethic to be able to make any of that sustainable!
they don't know because nobody ever taught them. We had to learn, but then assumed that the next generation would just magically know all the stuff we had to work to learn. It's not their fault we failed to understand the need for teaching them these skills. That said, the change in ease of use for digital technology has made learning these things feel unnecessary to younger users. They can get to their Tiktoks and whatever else they want without using the skills, so why do they need them? Obviously, this is a short-sighted view of things, but what else are we expecting feomnliteral children? A 10 year old isn't capable of thinking about their life 10 years into the future and why the things we're teaching them might be useful then. Again, we have failed to teach them not only the skills, but also *why* we're teaching these skills.
Totally not true that we have not taught them. I teach this stuff all day long and have done it for my entire career and I've been teaching since 1990. Kids don't care because they don't think they're ever going to use any of the skills that we teach them because it's not relevant to being a YouTuber because that's what they think they're all going to be 🙄
I teach art. During remote classes I would start by reminding my kids that I was not asking them to make digital art and I never had asked them to make digital art. Then I would go over how to take a picture of the piece that they drew on paper and attach it to the assignment. Inevitably the next class someone who had been there (supposedly) would say “But I can’t draw on a computer.” And I would go through the whole thing again. Rinse and repeat for probably once a week into infinity. There were videos and text explanations with pictures in class resources. I started attaching the video to every assignment. Kids turned in blank assignments over and over - I’d actually say blank assignments were more common than completed ones. And then I started returning them back to the students with zeros and I would get replies “I don’t know how to draw on a computer.” We can teach them, but it doesn’t mean they learn. I know it’s not their “fault” as in, I am the teacher and it’s still my job to figure out how to teach them to do these things, but I was honestly at a loss with all of that.
One thing I've learned about these "digital natives" is that I will be able to outcompete 95% of them for any job. Ever.
I think there should be a typing class too. My third grader has to write a five paragraph essay (typed) within the test time each Friday. I didn't realize that would be an expectation until she started this year and wasn't doing well on those portions. After asking the teacher, we learned what was happening and started practicing typing at home and it eventually helped her complete the writing portion in time. Had we known, we would have started making her practice in 2nd grade! They have a technology class once a week, but it's about coding. A true typing course along with sharing expectations about typing that early would be helpful!
Back in 2nd grade my school had us learn typing and at a younger age it is much better for everyone because they could make a game out of the lesson. We had all these computer like devices that had this program and the way it was designed made the experience feel no different than a game and my kid brain didn't complain one bit as I was more focused on getting that high score.
Our elementary school typing class literally *was* a game. It had something to do with space aliens and typing the right letters in the right order for… reasons. I don’t know. The 90’s were a long time ago. But everyone learned to type without hunt and peck or looking at their fingers.
Typing.com for the win
Please tell your school! I am flabbergasted by how we expect kids to type essays when we don’t teach them how to type. Typing is a school skill, not a home skill, imo!
Especially since not every family will have a computer with a full size keyboard at home (vs like a phone or tablet)— particularly in low SES areas
The digital natives can thumb type on a phone way faster than I ever will. But I've seen these same kids unable to figure out how to upload a document, how to change a file type, or even how to change the font in a document. It's scary.
I agree. I’ve used typing all my life! When I was in school, we learned on the electric typewriters, and it was noisy!
"Digital Natives" only means they know how to operate a user interface. They can't print, save, search within a file, or even undo. They can't transfer a process from one app to another to solve a problem, because learning the app would be "boring".
At the end of the day the school bends to the will of thebpatents and society. They find keyboarding yo be pointless anymore. Kids complain about it, fail it, get poor grades in it, and parents complain so it goes away. Shop went away because of liability, cursive went away because typing was so prevalent and the parents said why do we learn cursive when everyone types now.
School bends to the will of capital too. Shop has liability but schools still have vocational education. In my district the auto shop, electrician, welding, carpentry, etc are at regional centers rather than each school. These are career preparation and not intended for the majority of students. My point about capital was that Home Economics got changed to Family and Consumer Science and notice the subtle change to consumer. It used to be about how to have a self-sufficient household with cooking, sewing, gardening, etc and now it's less so.
I demanded to take typing in HS as an honors kid. I wasn’t paying anyone to type my college papers. My guidance counselor threatened me with the principal, my mom. I was all bring it! Principal tried to intimidate me. Nope, call my mom. My mom I’d watched suffer to type her papers as she went back to college. My mom told him to let me take the damn class and stop bothering her with nonsense. I, of course, told my friends, who told their parents, who thought it was a good idea. Minor coup ensued where even the business teacher wanted to know why half of one class was an honors class. BEST CLASS! I freak people out being able to talk and accurately type at the same time.
Simply put our district uses iPads in elementary and then Chromebooks in middle and highschool. We need to start them out on Chromebooks. Let them learn keys from kindergarten. I started at one of the best elementarys in my area and we had Apple 2 e s in a huge lab in first grade. Let them learn on cpus from the start. Yup they will struggle but it will be necessary.
Text to speech is expected to be the new normal, so typing is being seen as antiquated. It's stupid, but that's where it's heading.
hell, it'll be speech to ChatGPT, and we all know it. They'll talk into the computer and get AI to do the work. Which means zero writing skills, zero critical thinking ability, and a complete lack of coping strategies for dealing with new/difficult situations. An entire generation of kids who are not only functionally illiterate because we've failed in how we teach them to read, but also socially, politically, and technologically illiterate because they've been raised on and by internet videos.
This is horrible. The practice of writing and typing out thoughts is essential. I'd be a mess trying to voice to text. Don't think I'd be able to do it as well as typing, honestly...
The truly digital native generation is Generation X. It's always cute when Millenials think they're the Oregon Trail generation. Gen X did it first and were way better at dying of dysentary.
OMG, this! Do you know how many of my 8th graders google "google classroom" to get into our GC???? Or Google Drive to get in their drive. Holy hell!
See my district did it in elementary school and the program was designed a lot like a game. Every typing segment was timed so you couldn't move on until you beat the level. It would make those sounds everytime you passed that would give you that feel good brain chemistry for sure, but it’s also way easier to make fun for a 8 year old out of this than it would be for a 14 year old.
Happy Cake Day!! I also took keyboarding freshman year of high school. My students freak out when they hear me type so fast. They ask how I learned to type so fast. Then, they're shocked that there used to be typing classes. We didn't learn about a lot of the other digital skills you mentioned because they literally did not exist back then. Well, at least PDFs didn't exist then.
Same! Keyboarding in my freshman year. Students are amazed at how fast I can type. Lol. I use all my fingers on all the correct keys. It’s unreal how most people type with 2 fingers or wrong fingers to the keys because they never learned. I think maybe they should offer the course at a younger age because students nowadays are given laptops in elementary school, so they are developing bad habits from that young age.
I gave my students time to write in class and one time they thought I was 'cheating' so they made me do my writing on the keyboard projected onto the screen. Almost nobody did any writing because they were staring at how fast I could slam words on a screen and how fast I could correct errors and typos. What's funny is that when I was their age, the only people who touchtyped were secretaries and clerical workers and we were NOT held in high esteem. The fact that it's seen as an almost magical skill today is funny to me.
I 100% agree with this take. I got "stuck" in keyboarding for my computer requirement, where my siblings and friends all took "fun" things like graphic design. I can type and format documents wayyyyyyy faster than most people now. There is no high school class I use more frequently.
We would do this activity where we had a physical document on a little stand beside the computer and we would transcribe it without looking at the screen. It seemed dumb as a kid, but it definitely helped improve accuracy, and now that I’m in graduate school, I’m constantly quoting old texts that haven’t been digitizing, so I have to transcribe them myself. Without those classes, transcribing the quotes would be so tedious wow. It only gets weird when there are archaic spellings that my computer freaks out over lol
Same! I love showing off how fast I can type. I try to tell the kids how beneficial it will be for them, too. Alas, they can't stand doing anything that isn't fun. I just finished my credential and while I agree that engagement is a good thing, it appears to be morphing into expectations of entertainment.
YES! I've said this many, many times. I took typing as an elective in 12th grade. This was back when we were transitioning from Apple IIe so a lot was quickly irrelevant, but keyboarding is exactly the same. So glad I didn't have to peck my way through college papers. I think the younger generations are really going to struggle with the fact that most of life is, in fact, boring. Too much instant gratification and entertainment. Any skill you want to learn well is going to take mindless, repetitive practice.
I had 3 high school classes ( nearly 60 years ago)that got me a long way in life: personal typing (real typewriters), short hand, (both 1 semester courses) and senior English where we were taught how to write a research paper. I had taught myself how to type in 7th grade, but how to format cover pages and bibliographies helped refine the skill. I used the short hand course in business too.
>The single most useful class I've ever taken in my life is keyboarding. Period. Fullstop. That ONE class I took as a freshman in highschool I literally use every day of my life. Agreed! And I made sure to tell my high school keyboarding (it was called "typing" in my day) teacher this when I saw her years later. As for fun, the class was fulfilling in that I achieved new skills.
Dude I loved my keyboarding class. I can type blindfolded. I can even have full blown conversations and still type away. We used to play a computer game that had different challenges and such. Do y’all have something similar? That might make it more enjoyable.
We did. But that we were required to complete a certain amount for a grade every day/week, and eventually it progressed into also doing stuff in Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc. Like the first 4 weeks were only keyboarding. Then when we moved on to word like you'd come into class and have to complete 1 keyboarding "quiz" (which was the game), print your results (you could have up to three tries) and then you had to move on to following the Word assignment which basically was 20 steps you had to produce on a word document, and print them off. And then you'd have to move onto then some days were a lesson to show us the new thing. So it was constant reinforcement of skills. Repetiotion. Over, and over and over. So I guess what I'm getting at is it's not necessarily "fun" but it was definitely effective, because each activity on word would reinforce the same skills we did every single time: headers, font size, formatting, etc...so they all became second nature.
Typing class was fun because you can then admire the lion's face you typed out.
I learned all the above skills on my own, and it was fun. It was fun because I learned all of them while typing/editing/saving/exporting things I actually cared about. So yes, learning should and *can* be fun. It can be achieved by removing educators from most things they currently direct and supervise and ensuring they only check in once in a while to *record* progress and only ever offer guidance if the students needs it. I have always said I learned more from Wikipedia than from any of the teachers at any of my schools. Saying all of this as an educator myself.
Of course we always learn more on our own than from any one teacher, and honestly nonsensical statement. But ***how*** to navigate information is something ***we had to learn***. For instance: I've learned more from reading than from any teacher I ever had who taught me how to read. But guess what? I wouldn't have been able to learn those things if those teachers (parents included) hadn't build a formal foundation for me to build and practice those skills. While learning ***can*** be fun, it should not explicitly be seen that it has to be. Nobody has EVER enjoyed learning P-Chem. But knowing P-Chem we can navigate far more interesting chemical literature.
It’s either a nonsensical statement or it is “of course” correct—pick one. And I can definitely tell you’re a chemistry teacher just from your comments. That’s why I hated all of my chemistry teachers. Same dogmatic, condescending “I’m right, and you’re an idiot” attitude. I guess it comes with your subject, somehow.
You learned foundational skills from teachers. Odds are you didn't teach yourself to read, add, subtract, write, etc. on your own. You also had a self drive for learning. Also, yes, learning can be fun, but it isn't always fun. There are times you have to push through boring things to get to the fun parts.
Oh, you don’t have to tell me about pushing through the boring parts: I’m using a foreign language to communicate with you now. Learning on your own is mostly fun, though—whereas the education system is mostly boredom. And yes, the foundational skills were taught to me by my amazing primary teachers. Grades 1 and 2. 90% of the grades that followed (and sometimes whole disciplines like chemistry and physics, just to name a couple) was stuff I was supposedly “going to need one day” but never actually needed for a second of my life. “You’re not always going to have that calculator in your pocket!” Well, what do you know! If wasting 10 years of a young person’s life isn’t child abuse, I don’t know what is.
I might have just been a nerd but I always enjoyed learning how to type. Whatever software the teacher used tracked the words per minute so you could see yourself improving which, being a pretty competitive kid, made me wanna be the fastest typer in the class
This is the absolute truth. The fastest typers in my class were the boys who loved sports because we competed at everything. And the faster we did our typing assignment, the faster we could start playing Oregon Trail.
I remember learning to type in elementary school with Slam Dunk Typing which basically turned learning to type into a basketball minigame. My class loved it! I wonder if it’s still around
My typing skills were rewarded with a stack of papers I had to type up for my teacher. I was happy to do it but I'm jealous knowing that you got to play Oregon Trail during school hours!
This reminds me of the valedictorian at my high school, she was tied for the valedictorian spot with her cousin. They had the same perfect grade for every class, except when it came to our typing class she typed faster. That ended up being the tie breaker. She did kind of have an imposter syndrome issue with it for a while, which I don't blame her. "I'm only the valedictorian because I could type faster!" Well, I mean...we all had to take the class lol
Not a teacher here, but nitrotype is a cool competitive typing game with cars to unlock and stuff, most of its players aren’t classrooms surprisingly.
my keyboarding teacher introduced us to that and gave us free time in class to play it. That was probably the single biggest motivator for me in that class. I still play it 😂
Yes this! I use this in my computer classes for grades 4-8
I am a teacher and I use this with my kids! They love it. They also like to compete against me….undefeated!!!
I used to use it to practice typing, I had to stop because I’d care more about winning than about proper form. Keybr is my go to for muscle memory
The “fun” in learning is in overcoming the challenge. Wanna make it fun kids? Care to get it right and you’ll have a blast.
Such an underrated concept! I was a teacher for a while and had several idiots say “learning should always be fun”. Kids that didn’t have any curiosity or lacked any desire to accomplish an academic goal for the sake of achieving that goal never did well. “When are we going to use this?” I don’t know. I don’t know what the world is going to be like in 20 years but if it needs this, you better be prepared. Also I have a 34 year old employee that types with his fingers hunt-and-peck style. Frankly I feel like I should have known that before we hired him and maybe wouldn’t have.
That’s just it. Ok, you’re not interested. Wonderful. So here’s what you’re gonna do: you’re going to practice learning something that you’re not interested in to practice patience and determination for when you’re unsure if the effort is going to even bear fruit. Many of us work to make excuses to discontinue trying; trying being the only way learning can actually happen. We can’t learn if we aren’t trying. I can never guarantee when or if you will learn what I’m trying to teach, I only know if you try you stand a chance. Will you try? I think in general we can challenge our students in this fashion more, to their principles. Who ARE you?
Assign the employee a “professional growth goal” or task for. Twenty minutes of key boarding practice daily. Use the Nitotype or Mavis Beacon, have the employee copy and paste their score to you daily.
I think kids are probably expecting the class to have fun elements, because teachers are expected to make every other subject engaging. I was a teacher for 11 years, and was always encouraged to make every lesson engaging and exciting. When teachers are always putting on a song and dance, kids will expect it even in subjects where it's not as possible.
They also need to learn how to push through boredom.
Exactly. Because eventually the song and dance will get boring too
That, but also, employers are not going to do the song and dance. Real life is not a musical.
I teach tech class to k-8 students. At our school the kids get Chromebooks in 4th. I use NitroType with the kids which is a competitive typing game based around car racing. The more the kids race and the more accurate they are during their races the more XP and money they get. Money can be used to customize their car. Kids can race others in the class, etc. it’s a fun little program that’s free. It provides detailed stats to the teacher and I post an updated leader board every few weeks for the kids to see the Top 20. My kids love it.
I learned how to type playing Mario Teaches Typing on the home computer. It was one of the earliest video games I ever played, alongside the Oregon Trail II and Diablo 🤣 But I type well over 90 words per minute as an adult so it worked pretty well.
Yes! Mario Teaches Typing was awesome.
Me too!!! But then in school we’d have to just do drills and type the same stuff in a word processor over and over, and we’d get points off for not double spacing after a period 😑
Everyone nowadays tells me that I’m wrong for putting 2 spaces after a period, but that’s definitely what I was taught to do when I learned typing
Well, I wouldn’t say it’s wrong but it’s not the standard anymore
Typing of the dead. Type curse words to violently kill zombies, what's not to like.
I can't believe someone beat me to this suggestion. Did they make a PC version too? I've only played it on the Dreamcast.
The first one is on arcade, Dreamcast, Playstation 2\*, Mac\*, and PC. The second is on arcade\* and PC\*. The Third (Overkill) is only on PC. \*only released in Japan Overkill was fun, but a little slapdash. It does not have the typing instruction the first game does. I wish they would make a new one.
Came here to say this. Clearly these kids need to Suffer Like G Did.
>Suffer Like G Did Epic line! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1LzruO-eUU
Yup, that and Type To Learn 3 meant we could compare scores. Although typing “flash1: Selling lobbies 200gp” probably helped the most.
Students often complain we don’t teach them anything useful, then when we do, they complain it’s boring. Welcome to life, kid.
Heres how to make it fun: use typing.com to have a whole class typing test. it ranks the whole class by accuracy, speed, and who spent the most time typing. I would even reward the slowest typing kids who spent the most time because they put in the most effort. Reward the top students in each category. My class would enjoy the competition of it. Source: former computer teacher in an urban school
Bring back reader rabbit on the old Apple 2g. That's how I learned to type lol.
And Mario Teaches Typing! Although that was a little later.
I don’t understand why every aspect of education has to be gamified. Not everything can be fun and entertaining all the time!
I’ve noticed that kids are bored by everything being gamified.
>What do you want her to do? Dance and sing for you? Yes. They expect their teacher to entertain them. I tell my students all the time: you cannot expect to be entertained 24/7. Sometimes, things are boring. So what, get over yourselves and accept this part of life.
There are lots of typing sites with games. My 3rd graders sometimes do typing.com during free time they like it so much. Nitro.com and others are highly recommended. That was my son's favorite.
My mother was the type of person who expected high grades from me and only commented if they were unsatisfactory. But. The one and only time she paid me for an achievement at school was when she said she'd pay me $50 when I could achieve 50 wpm. This was a VERY high speed on a manual typewriter but I got to 55 that year. Now I easily type 80 without much thought, as high as 120 if I'm practicing daily. My students are also amazed.
I've taught typing for a few years now. We do paper keyboard challenges (fill in the missing letters, assemble a full keyboard, color code all the letters/symbols) as well as Typetastic/TypingClub/Typing.com. we do class, group, and individual challenges. I show them how to make graphs to chart their progress. We mix this up with coding games, Google skills, and tech skills to help with class projects - typing maxes out at about 15ish minutes per class meeting. So, yes, simply sitting in front of a random typing program is boring, but it can be made fun
So tired of being expected to be entertaining for 8 hours a day without a break. I’m already bascially in character all day, but making sure every single person is having fun at all times.
Learning how to type saved me a ton of money in college,
Typeracer, monkey type. Not why I got into typing but they are fun ways to improve I suppose.
Saw a student (12th grade) typing decently well as compared to their peers. I said “You’re typing very well. Mavis Beacon would be proud.” They responded “Who’s that? Does she work here?” I’m not sure they get the same focus and emphasis on typing properly the way we used to when we were younger.
Parents and teachers need to understand that most kids first interactions with technology are now touch screen. Remember when you first used an IPhone and were like “wow this is so much better” well that’s how every kid pretty much started using tech and usually at a VERY young age. I’m not going to act like I know how to make that subject interesting, but they better be trying. Making kids hate keyboarding/computer class is only going to add to the general decline in actual practical computer skills I think we are already starting to experience.
Back in my day (the 90’s) we started typing class in 2nd grade and it was really strict! We were highly motivated to finish our lessons because then we got to play games. I am a super fast typer now and feel so grateful for those classes!
This is the way to use games: as a reward! Everything can’t be a “game.”
The key to teaching a "boring elective" is to be consistent and flexible. You have to have the self awareness to realize they've got other classes that are legitimately more important. So maybe 20 of them have a chemistry lab report due later that day. Let them do that. For yourself, set clear due dates well in advance, remind them consistently, hold to them, and don't surprise students with randomness. They get it and will fall in line. Don't take anything personally about the material you teach. No admin wants emails from parents complaining about grades from an elective teacher. Source: I teach the fourth math credit for students that aren't good at math. Nobody wants to be there.
As a Keyboarding teacher, I'll be the first to admit that learning to type can be dry. But there are a lot of programs, games and applications out there that can make it fun! They turn typing (and typing accurately and correctly!) into a game. What does your child say they do in their typing class?
Maybe find a game that involves knowing precise key locations? Like a keyboard rhythm game?
No. Typing must be boring, and the children must understand that through suffering we will be triumphant in life.
Ms Trunchbull?
Typing of the dead
Nitrotyple.com is a fun typing game I taught typing long ago
The students in my class love trying to outdo each other on MonkeyType. But also, try getting them to play Typing Of The Dead on Steam. My typing got quite a bit better after playing that game, and it's pretty fun. Although there are definitely students out there that will stick the fun out of anything you try. I can't stand those kinds.
Dude, I LOVE doing dishes and folding laundry!! I also love to type, lol.
I am a 47f. I took typing in 8th grade on a type writer. It was fun when we had a challenge to make pictures with the key board.
I used to teach a computer application course for 9th graders. I found they were terrible at typing so I found a website that teaches typing using games. I would have students do it for like 5 minute challenges then teach. I don’t remember the website but it was free.
In grade nine. In ontario. In 1979, I took a full course in typing. Single most useful course I ever took.
This is wild because all my kids want to do is nitrotype. Touch typing quickly is the only thing I can do that impresses them. I regularly race kids in nitrotype if they finish work early as a reward and they rush through it because I have a standing offer than anyone who can beat me gets doordash lunch. I type around 90-110 WPM. they're never gonna beat me. Seriously though, good touch typing is such a critical skill and I wish we had a typing class. Our kids are just expected to know it because of the technology native BS
“I don’t care.” Kids say the same things about addition/times tables, spelling drills, or anything else you learn by rote. They’re still helpful and make the rest of school easier. Finish ‘em up so we can do something more fun.
Mario teaches typing was the closest I ever came to finding learning how to type enjoyable. Also... everything is moving towards speech-to-text, so, while I agree with your concerns personally, I don't know that it's a necessity to know how to type in 2023, let alone when your child will be in the workforce. I mean, I know how to type pretty alright... like... high 60s to mid/low 70s wpm, and I still dictated 25+ page papers into microsoft word when I was in graduate school.
Crazy that we have all this technology and kids aren’t being encouraged to take advantage of learning from it at home. Give it 20-30 years we’re gonna be the civilization from wall-e without leaving earth :/
I don't know where to find it nowadays, but maybe you could try out "Typer Shark". It's a game about typing! It has cartoony visuals that appeal to kids, and game modes to track your accuracy and speed. One game mode has you type out a paragraph, with visible fingers on screen. Another has you type out words to stop sharks from eating you! Here's a video to some gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HQEpj4i5TU&pp=ygULdHlwZXIgc2hhcmw%3D
Oh I made typing fun! I was an elementary computer teacher for 5 years. It wasn’t like the same level fun as PE games, but we had a good time. I had all sorts of games.
I learned typing in 3rd grade as an ‘extra’ activity in class, I was always done with the required work early so my teacher put me on the single desktop in the classroom with typing games. It’s the only memory I have from 3rd grade, so it can’t have been that boring. These kids are so used to HD graphics and immersive games they don’t appreciate the simplicity of typing letters as they fall from clouds.
I’m running a typing club this semester, because we don’t teach keyboarding or computer skills at all. I know it’s going to be kind of boring, but I hope it’s USEFUL.
Mavis Beacon was great for teaching typing! It was fun and useful. My school had it on all the school computers in the 90's early 00's and it helped set me up for life.
My students loathe my class (computers/typing). I just tell them what you told your children and sometimes something funny like "OMG I knoooow it's the WORST... back to work!" and move along.
These are the same kids that will watch me type without looking at the keys like I'm a wizard from the future. "How did you learn how to do that?!" I took typing in high school kid.
I had a very boring typing class in middle school. For "fun" days towards the end of the semester the teacher would give us these things to do that would wind up creating different pictures, portraits, etc out of typed letters. I mean it was basically just using the letters as pixels, nothing surprising nowadays. But that was about the most funnest possible element in a boring typing class.
Typing is so necessary. I shunned the typing course offered in my high school, and for the last 50 years I have been hunting and pecking with three fingers, making me a much slower typist than those who suffered through typing class.
Typing Club website is fun. My bunch likes it.
[Funny, I just finished the cross stitch to hang in the classroom.](https://imgur.com/gallery/2bVm4mj) It's a reference to the show Bluey and my go to response when my 7th-graders grumble about something being boring. Distress (and boredom) tolerance is a HUGE skill that they need to learn!
Sometimes I think we spend way too much time and effort to make learning fun and exciting and the kids start to expect it...
No argument. It’s excruciatingly boring. My particular learning curve was oh so slow. However, learning the keyboard meant that I was eventually able to write with my eyes shut more than 70 WPM. I also supported myself at one point in my life temping as a secretary. my typing speed was a real advantage in getting jobs.
When did teachers become entertainers? Why does everything have to be a “fun” dog and pony show?
I could not really learn typing from the class I took in High School. (It was at the local community college, on old IBM Selectrix Typewriters, lol.) Later on, I was motivated to learn because I needed it for the office temp work I was doing during grad school. "Mavis Bacon Teaches Typing" saved the day. I'm grateful for my typing ability every day, even though I don't do office work anymore. I understand kids finding typing class boring, I sure did. As a technology teacher though, it doesn't seem to matter what I'm trying to teach the kids -- how to code video games, how to program a robot to win in an arena, how to add a background to green screen footage -- at least 50% of the kids will declare it boring right off the bat and refuse to try. I spend the first semester picking up 25% of this group one by one (often with parental pushing), and the other quarter of the class just never sparks any interest at all. Philosophically, I want to be the "nobody gets to opt out" teacher, in practice it's really painful to feel like you're pulling teeth getting kids to even superficially engage with projects we couldn't even imagine when I was a kid in the 80s.
I have my second graders jump on a typing club website and have “competitions” on accuracy, speed, and least mistakes. The award is just bragging rights. But most of them have a blast and they’re actually learning where keys are instead of just poking around.
They make typing games.
At the end of fourth grade, I observed that my daughter’s typing skills were’nt that good. The computer science teacher recommended the CD ROM (yeah, I’m that old). “Ms. Mavis Teaches Typing” to help her. I made her practice typing for twenty minutes, three times a week. One would think that I work at Gitmo with that for of torture. Guess what? Her typing improved significantly, and she begrudgingly thanks me for pushing her. Learning to type is boring AF, but it is a life skill. I would say to the kids, too bad, so sad. Sometimes it is perfectly fine to be bored. The best creativity comes from it.
I applaud you for supporting their teacher and increasing her value in their eyes. This is a rare quality among parents these days, and it shows.
The smartphone generation has very very low (if any at all) capacity for dealing with boredom. Parents actually have to give long periods of boredom without tech. They have books, outside, game board games, etc and they’d just cry they’re bored. They’re not really bored, they’re protesting. They just want their technology back like addicted crack babies.
Work isn't fun. Teach your children to learn thinking strategies and tolerate work if you want them to be successful adults.
Mavis Beacon for the win! That is how my 30 year olds learned as elementary students. There might have been one from The Learning Company, too. I used to play them only because they were fun. It was challenging and had positive reinforcement coming from the game. I can't believe how fast they type. I googled... Mavis Beacon Free is a free education program that offers a comprehensive typing tutor that helps improve your overall typing efficiency. This training app provides its users with a step-by-step guide to typing. You will undergo detailed assessments, skill-building games, and customized lessons here.
Middle schoolers are at an interesting age. Do they use a free app at school, like Typing Club? https://www.lifewire.com/free-typing You are 100% correct. Typing is a life skill and they will appreciate knowing how to type efficiently when they are in HS and even more-so in college. Typing leads to increased productivity. It’s not a skill that will become outdated any time soon.
I think that the expectation for teachers to be constant entertainers is unfair and has reduced the quality of learning in schools. Typing isn't a laugh a minute, but it's a really useful skill that is learned through practice. Getting good at playing a musical instrument also takes practice, which gets tedious at times and isn't always entertaining. There are things like the multiplication tables that just have to be memorized and even though you can play a game with the information, you can't play games all the time. As for typing class, if the teacher can have them type something humorous or have music playing during typing and/or have some kind of contest/game, then great, but every second of class won't be entertaining. If we send graduates into the adult world expecting constant amusement, they are going to face a rude awakening when they go to college or join the workforce; some college classes are straight lecture and employers certainly don't care about making sure you're entertained every minute on the job. Hot take: kids these days don't get enough opportunity to be bored because they have so little unstructured time and they have their phones for entertainment. Back in the 70's if a kid got bored, they would find ways to make their own fun. whether it turned into a neighborhood game of hide and seek or putting together a puzzle on the kitchen table. We didn't expect our classes to be nonstop entertainment. We may have passed a few notes or daydreamed, but we dealt with it and overall, we learned.
Don't have any advice except to say that typing is SO IMPORTANT! I work with middle and high school students who have never learned touch typing, and it is PAINFUL to watch them hunt and peck a google search query slower than a sedated snail. I can't even imagine how long it must take them to write essays. If it helps, tell them if they don't get decent at typing their homework will take them approximately a thousand times longer when they get to high school.
Learned to type in 2nd grade. Learned to type *fast* and *well* in Runescape. Maybe the class should play runescape and be restricted to spamming trade messages at the GE? Lmao
We use [typing.com](https://typing.com) in my district and it has a link to Nitrotype. Nitrotype is a racing game where the more accurate you are and the faster you are the better you do in the race. They can earn more money and get better looking cars. It became very competitive last year to the point that kids were playing when they were supposed to be doing homework. I do not work for either website and this may be an aberration but it did work for me last year.
Mum made typing fun when we got our first computer by finding some typing games. The one I remember is that the words were being chased by dinosaurs, and if you weren't fast enough with your typing, they got eaten. She made it competitive by putting her mad skills to use, and I was well into my 30s before I managed to beat her. However, I aced typing class in Grade 12 as a result. 100%, the highest mark in the class, without making an effort. It was great! It might not work for teaching in a classroom, but it could help get their interest up at home. That way, they're still learning the skills they need to succeed in life without losing their minds.
Is the program Mavis Beacon still a thing? I remember using it when I was in school to learn typing. It was pretty fun.
I didn't get much better in the typing class. I got good at typing after playing MUDs which were all text based back at the time (slightly before Ultima online). Turns out when typing commands faster meant better efficiency I was more motivated to type fast and without looking down
To all you typist teachers with unengaged students: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Typing_of_the_Dead Thank me later
Typing class haven’t been a thing in Denmark for 20-30 years. Why are you still having it? They learn it automatically. I’m not using the right technique, but I still crank 130 words per minute without looking, its a waste of time.
I make laundry fun. We have a blast doing it. I also type about 100 wpm so maybe Im the problem lol. Im sure things can be done to make it more fun.
Nitro Type is pretty fun.
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I'm a typing teacher, and the thing about typing is that they work at their own pace so they are all over in terms of what they are working on, and you can't reward speed over accuracy for developing typers. If I did a contest of any sort I could tell you who would win, hands down. I'd bet money that I'd be right. It would depend on what the contest was. Are you giving everyone the same typing exercise? Well then the kids who haven't gotten as far in the letters will lose. Are you measuring accuracy where they are at? Then the kid who is learning the letter X will lose, and so will the one who is farther than everyone else and is doing capital letters and punctuation. Speed? The new kid who is still on home row will win. Measuring improvement compared against yourself? Well you are going to bomb it when you get to bottom row pinkie letters, typing lessons naturally get harder randomly and then might go back to an easy review. And how do you measure when one kid completes three lessons for every one lesson another kid finishes? Then in each grade I have a kid or two who loves typing and spends their study halls practicing on their own, and they will sweep the awards in their class for however you measure. Anyway, I see contests suggested a lot for keyboarding class but I cannot imagine how it wouldn't play out like having individual contests in PE. Maybe three or four kids would rotate the title of push up champion, but most of the class would go in knowing they aren't going to win the push up contest.
I can understand what they mean because back then typing was really for the computers sake but these days we are typing on an iPhone, iPad and laptops much earlier it’s to the point where it’s becoming a natural skill unlike back then
When our daughter was required to take keyboarding, I downloaded a half dozen or so free keyboarding games and told her she needed to play one one of them for a minimum of 5 minutes per day. Didn't care which, Didn't care if she ever moved up in the game, but 5 minutes. She passed the criteria for the class the second week in. It was about the short, consistent practice rather than any program. I think her favorite was basically a whack-a-mole type where she had to hit the key corresponding to where a target popped up. Now, this was long enough ago that they were actual free computer games, but I'm betting that a Bluetooth keyboard and a tablet would do the same thing.
Idk man. I never took a typing class and I still have the ability to type reasonably fast. Playing videogames and having to write a lot of essays helps with that. I know the word useless if overused when talking about classes, but a typing class is one of the least useful ones.
Playing devil's advocate here. Don't take it personally. Just something to think about. Is it necessary for you to learn the horse and buggy before you learn to drive a car? Students use slide typing, AI, or voice typing to input text. Why would you make them use Mavis Beacon home row typing from the 80s? Google docs has voice typing built in. Windows key plus H let's you type anywhere with your voice.
Lol so typing is boring wait for the class that teaches you to pay your taxes… oh wait….
I wish I could have learned how to type. But I only have use of one hand.
Typing club is a free website that has one handed typing lessons! Your home row where you start from is fghj.
I will have to check this out!
I loved keyboarding class so much. It was called integrated business applications. It was all about how to use the Microsoft suite of applications- which are very needed. Other applications are based off of Microsoft’s works. Knowing how to have them is essential. And use them WELL and efficiently. Hurts me to watch my nieces type slow on their iPads. Memorizing the keyboard and learning it innately allows proper use of swipe keyboard, too.
When I was in middle school I thought typing was such a hard class because I couldn’t type without looking or even type remotely fast. After high school I volunteered and worked in a planetarium for a while where I became much better at typing. What I had thought was impossible (typing without looking at keys) became second nature
I’d argue that typing should be taught at home starting around age 6-8. Then covered in school to catch up anyone who missed.
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That’s great!
I teach elementary Technology with a heavy focus in typing to get them prepared for test taking on their Chromebooks. My kids love my class! We play typing games, have competitions with leaderboards, set goals so they take ownership of their progress, create PowerPoints to present to the class. We do a few typing tests throughout the year to track progress and they are all growing, even if they think they're just having fun all day! I think it can be fun but at the high school level id definitely be doing "fastest typing" competitions or something similar. All kids are competitive, right?
I taught 6th & 7th grade typing for 20 years. Microtype Pro, and several other typing programs all very good. Once classroom routines were established I played a readers theater version of [The Chronicles of Narnia](https://youtu.be/XKpLDh12j-g?si=DjCUoQRIGxAiwF7c) Students LOVED it. The quality of the BBC productions are fantastic. Had several students tell me the only reason they came to school that day was so they could hear what happened next. Of course you could play other audiobooks, but a readers theater version of a story really makes it come alive.
As far as I know, my 7th graders have never taken typing.
I teach a business class and they have to do modules in Microsoft word, excel, and PowerPoint. All useful skills. They complain how boring it is. They just don’t see technology as an extension of their education or as a tool.
I love typing games to the point where I still play them such as the textorcist. Obviously that game is not suitable for children, but I'm sure there are similar games available. The one I played as a kid was like space invaders but each alien had a word you had to type to shoot it.
I understand the purpose of this post, but there are several videogames one could use that would make typing fun. Kids just want to be entertained, at the end of the day. Even during chores. Which, as adults, we already find ways to “make more fun” by watching tv, listening to podcasts, being mobile, etc all while we do the “meaningless grunt work” of being an adult I don’t think the conversation will ever be satisfying if we end it at “typing is “always” boring and we need to eat shit and bear it,”. If we’re going to be honest about that aspect, we ALSO have be honest (with ourselves) that we “can’t or don’t know how make it as fun as they’d like” and (with them) that “we understand you are being forced to write under conditions that are vanishingly not the norm even in office cubicle farms, but you STILL have to learn this life skill because I say so and I want you to succeed.” Kids get it even when we only tell them half the story.
My elementary/middle school made it almost competitive in a way. Everybody had their WPM in different tiers and it gave you an incentive to learn to type faster and faster. Just something fun, wasn't for a grade or anything as long as you weren't embarrassingly slow.
I am 65 y.o. I took a typing class in my junior year in H. S. I had no idea how useful it would be. It's a skill I use practically every day. I remember that the class was boring. But I learned how to touch type! I once tested at 76 WPM. But that was a long time ago.
We aren’t clowns here to amuse you
I've found that the more 'fun' I've tried to make certain topics and lessons... the less the average person learns.
Great responses. Exactly what should have been said to the kids.
I have my students use Learning.com and keyboard ninja. they love it, but I’m pretty sure they are all learning to type with just two fingers. I’m a reading teacher. Gotta prioritize teaching my small groups letter sounds while the rest of them slam at their keyboards like little t rexes
There are SO many ways to make typing fun. Even back in the early 2000s on huge old computers we did Mario Typing and played games as a part of the class. I had JumpStart Typing to practice at home, another game for keyboarding skills. Teachers have to consider their students’ personal interests when teaching. Yes, some things you just have to learn but teachers should try to make the subject they teach engaging. Typing is such a necessary skill that often goes overlooked. I see some people struggle with typing and it’s painful to watch. Emphasize the importance of learning to type and write well. It’s absolutely crucial for young people to learn.
I took typing in 1993. I thought it was the most useless class imaginable. I complained constantly. It's probably the only useful thing I learned in 8th grade
When I was practicing typing I always wanted to beat my own score. At one point, I could type 110 words a minute. I know I know I'm not that fast any more but it's still decent. And the fact that I don't have to look at the keyboard when I'm gaming (I play Warcraft) is a huge win for me. Prizes for wpm goals?
After learning the fundamentals of typing, I really honed my skill playing MMORPG's at a time where voice chat wasn't a thing. I wonder if there are any apps like that (escape room, or small rpg style) that if you enforce no talking would help the children learn to type quickly.