How to teach keyboard skills
Keyboard skills are the set of skills required to operate a computer keyboard fluently, and include an understanding of the layout and general functionality of computer keyboards.
The following points outline why it is important to provide direct tuition in keyboard skills rather than allow young people to evolve their own typing style.
A lack of keyboard skills can make curriculum work at the computer time consuming and frustrating. Lack of keyboard skills can impede creative thinking and creative writing.
Familiarity with keyboards helps to generate confidence in the use of ICT.
There are potential health risks associated with poor keyboard skills, especially upper limb disorders (including pains in the neck, arms, elbows, wrists, hands and fingers), which are often known as repetitive strain injury (RSI).
What practical techniques can be used? Keyboard courses are usually based on exercises designed to familiarise learners with the keyboard layout and the correct finger and hand positions for typing. A number of interactive games are available which provide motivation, clear feedback and the opportunity to repeat exercises.
You can teach keyboard skills either in the context of any curriculum area or as discrete skills. It has been found that for Key Stage 1 and 2 pupils the optimum lesson time is about 25 minutes. Motivation drops away in longer lessons, while shorter periods may not allow learners to make enough progress.
Overlay keyboards Overlay keyboards are plugged into computers and used in place of ordinary keyboards. They can help to improve access and control and are particularly useful for early learners or people with special educational needs. Once a user has become familiar with the overlay keyboard, a conventional keyboard can replace it.
Tutor boards Tutor boards are mock or representation keyboards made of card or plastic. Some have wipe-clean surfaces; others are more like jigsaws. One advantage of tutor boards is that they can be used in the classroom rather than taking time to develop keyboard familiarity in the computer suite.
Using colours With younger learners you can use coloured gloves with keys marked to match. For example, the right-hand keys and right-hand glove might both be yellow, while the left-hand keys and left-hand glove could be blue.
To help locate vowels and other frequently used letters, you can also mark the keys with colours.
Keyboard tutors Commercial software can be highly motivating, making what could otherwise be a rather tedious task amusing and interesting. Tutor programs teach skills by providing plenty of positive reinforcement, often with the help of a cartoon character to appeal to younger learners. Many of these programs provide drill and practice opportunities to increase skill levels, games and puzzles, ways to assess typing speeds and certificates of competence. Programs are available to suit a range of aptitudes and interests and you can often download trial or cut-down versions of keyboard tutors from the internet free of charge
Research on Keyboard skills Typing programs BBC Typing – Dance Mat Typing
An excellent site that children can work through the different levels to learn to touch type correctly (for ages 7 to 11). Probably all you will really need.
Sense – Touch Typing A free online typing tutor with different lessons and clear diagrams to help you use the correct fingering.
Alpha Rain Five levels of difficulty. Children have to hit keys on the keyboard before the letters fall to the bottom of the screen
Barracuda Three different speeds – you need to type whole words and single capital letters.
Type Me
A three leveled game (and each game can be set to a variety of difficulty levels). In the first level, children have to click on a letter to ‘save it’. When they type the letter correctly, the letter gets a parachute as it falls from the top of the screen. The next level is lower and upper case. The final level is whole words
Using colours With younger learners you can use coloured gloves with keys marked to match. For example, the right-hand keys and right-hand glove might both be yellow, while the left-hand keys and left-hand glove could be blue.
To help locate vowels and other frequently used letters, you can also mark the keys with colours.
Keyboard tutors Commercial software can be highly motivating, making what could otherwise be a rather tedious task amusing and interesting. Tutor programs teach skills by providing plenty of positive reinforcement, often with the help of a cartoon character to appeal to younger learners. Many of these programs provide drill and practice opportunities to increase skill levels, games and puzzles, ways to assess typing speeds and certificates of competence. Programs are available to suit a range of aptitudes and interests and you can often download trial or cut-down versions of keyboard tutors from the internet free of charge
Typing programs
BBC Typing – Dance Mat Typing An excellent site that children can work through the different levels to learn to touch type correctly (for ages 7 to to 11)Probably all you will really need.
Sense –
Touch TypingA free online typing tutor with different lessons and clear diagrams to help you use the correct fingering.
Alpha Rain
Five levels of difficulty. Children have to hit keys on the keyboard before the letters fall to the bottom of the screen
Barracuda
Three different speeds – you need to type whole words and single capital letters.
To help locate vowels and other frequently used letters, you can also mark the keys with colours.
Keyboard tutors Commercial software can be highly motivating, making what could otherwise be a rather tedious task amusing and interesting. Tutor programs teach skills by providing plenty of positive reinforcement, often with the help of a cartoon character to appeal to younger learners. Many of these programs provide drill and practice opportunities to increase skill levels, games and puzzles, ways to assess typing speeds and certificates of competence. Programs are available to suit a range of aptitudes and interests and you can often download trial or cut-down versions of keyboard tutors from the internet free of charge
Typing programs
BBC Typing – Dance Mat Typing An excellent site that children can work through the different levels to learn to touch type correctly (for ages 7 to to 11)Probably all you will really need.
Sense –
Touch TypingA free online typing tutor with different lessons and clear diagrams to help you use the correct fingering.
Alpha Rain
Five levels of difficulty. Children have to hit keys on the keyboard before the letters fall to the bottom of the screen
Barracuda
Three different speeds – you need to type whole words and single capital letters.