Keyboarding

Keyboarding is a skill I liken to knowing math facts. Students sometimes question why they need to be fluent (and not use just index fingers to type or calculate 8 x 9 on paper). I recently worked with 8th grade students using Excel in math - and it was painful to watch some students enter data. That experience brought keyboarding back to the forefront of my attention.

Just like math facts, keyboarding can be laborious to practice; our school keyboarding program, UltraKey, isn't all that fun. From a teaching standpoint, it does, however, track the keys that students have learned and show progress. We use it regularly in 4th grade. Many kids should continue to practice their fluency - and it hasn't been included it in the curriculum in following grades. Maybe we should... let me know your thoughts.

I have found some good web sites where students can practice their keyboarding skills at school and at home. If you know about other fun sites, please share them. We often provide lists of practice web sites to parents when we think students would benefit from extra practice - especially those students who struggle with handwriting.

Here are those sites:
Computer Circus
Room 108 Typing Tutor Game
Dance Mat Typing
Typer Shark

In an upcoming blog, I'll share web sites which might make students want to practice their math facts.