Learning to touch type on a standard QWERTY keyboard is still an important skill, but things have changed recently with on screen keyboards, autocorrect, speech recognition technology and mobile devices. Whilst it has commonly been taught in IT or digital technology classes it could be argued that it is probably needed in almost every subject and should not be limited to the time a specialist subject can provide.

Students can learn efficient keyboarding skills from an early age. Once habits get established they are very hard to change. Many older students and adults find it very difficult to unlearn typing habits that they have developed over many years. A concerted effort must be made to start from the beginning and take many steps backward before they can go forward again.

The website I discuss in this post is one of many that provide a game like experience for learning efficient keyboarding skills. The free version of this website does not allow you to login and track your progress, but the activities are still excellent especially for younger students. Ads will be displayed on the site but you can enter the code ‘red panda’ to remove these or you can use an ad blocker extension for your browser. The website is: https://typetastic.com/learn.html

In the past when I’ve tried to teach this in the lab it was very difficult for students to take in all of the information and then remember it when practicing. This game based learning approach is better as it is self-paced and provides lots of visual and audio feedback to help individual students to practice the many skills required to become proficient. The other problem was noise. Unless every student had a set of working headphones then the lab quickly became very noisy which made it difficult for students to concentrate. The main challenge is time.

When I learnt to type in high school (back in the 80s) it was for a whole period each school week for the whole year. That is a major investment in time. I think younger students can actually learn faster given the right opportunities. I am amazed at the musical talents that kids can master if they are dedicated to practice regularly. Click on the Unit 1 section as pictured below…

These activities are designed to help students become familiar with the standard keyboard layout. Students can use a computer with a keyboard (preferred) or a touch screen to do these. There are 5 activities (all very similar) as picture below…

Here’s an example from the first activity…

This is actually a very clever way of familiarising students with the keyboard layout. It’s a bit like learning scales on a musical instrument. With practice you will be able to remember which group it belongs and where it is on the keyboard.

I don’t expect students to complete the unit in 1 session, but it is quite fun. Once they become familiar with these type of games they will get more fluent and fly through them quickly.