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  1. #21
    Any teachers out there or parents of kids in high school? Do the high schools still regularly offer typing?

  2. #22
    I took a typing class in 6th grade in 1987. It was a semester. I can type about 80 wpm.

  3. #23
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh
    never learned-watch this:


    sdkjfalwnfa oawnef;asj[oiasj[f pwsefiowhef[oijhwee[oifjawe j[OWEJF[OIAWEFOIIARWEGFIOA JAOWIEJFOIQWHJR[JFSJ[Oijlisdviacv [oaisdfj[oiAJFANF;LNWQPOER AJS[OIVJOIJASDDFIPSSD [PIpja[psdvm[paijvpj[piJ[PIJGADRF/

    (Well, honestly, it was 9th grade for about half a year, I think. I may have made it to 60 wpm. Now it might be 30-40 at best with half of those mistakes.)
    [redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Reilly View Post
    Any teachers out there or parents of kids in high school? Do the high schools still regularly offer typing?
    I graduated high school in 2006. As far as I can recall, it wasn't offered at my school.

    Edit: I should clarify this was a Central Florida public high school, so my experience is not necessarily typical.

  5. #25
    This thread reminds me of one of the professors I had at Duke.

    He showed a lot of media from his computer during class and apologized for hunt and pecking. He explained that in high school, he did have the foresight to enroll for the typing elective because he sensed there would be favorable ratios of girls to boys. The principal called in the two boys who had signed up for typing, and in a thought process that would probably not hold up today, told them that they would not be allowed to take typing. Apparently even in Canada, the Cold War was in the forefront and boys could better prevent the Soviet takeover by learning physics and eventually serving in the Navy than by learning typing.

    Actually that professor had a lot of good stories and did a pretty good job of mocking the modern perception of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (even before all of the recent academic/athletic stuff).

  6. #26
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    Fayetteville, NC
    I became familiar with a keyboard back in 1972. It was during my Morse Intercept training at Ft. Devens, MA. We started off with some high tech machine that was pretty impressive for its time and once we learned all the characters and reached a certain speed we got sent back to the Stone Age and finished our schooling on something we called a Mill. It was a manual typewriter, which only had upper case letters, numbers and punctuation marks on it. The keys were extremely stiff and the manual carriage return was a pain in the rear, as our blocks of code were graded not only for having the correct characters, but also for spacing.

    After graduating from school I did a tour at V.H.F.S., VA. and one at the 7th R.R.F.S. in Thailand, both places used electronic typing machines, which was nice.

    I finally learned to formally type when I reclassified in 1975. Again, my training was at Ft. Devens and I got up to around the mid 70’s.

  7. #27
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Most useful class I ever took in High School (early 1980's). Even today, I type faster than my secretary.

  8. #28
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    New Orleans, Louisiana
    I appear to be an exception to this thread.

    After maybe two weeks in a middle school typing class, I was accepted into an off-campus science program and was shuttled off there instead. Would the typing class have been the more meaningful choice for my adult life? To be honest, I think both typing and advanced science became equally irrelevant.

    My hunt-and-peck process (staring only at the keyboard and working it out) became advanced-hunt-and-peck mastery (looking at the screen about half the time and not really worrying about it). For some reason, my left and right index fingers instinctively know where to go*, and my right thumb knows when to use the space bar. I was clocked at 67 wpm officially several years ago and averaged about 60 wpm in a series of online tests today. Real typists are better, of course, but the point is that I've never needed to be a real typist. I've passed the point in my life where speedy typing was a necessity, so I'm thinking I didn't miss out on very much.

    Echoing an earlier comment, my handwriting has also gone to hell, but that seems like a recent development.

    * While typing this message, I tried to notice how each index finger marks its territory on a QWERTY keyboard. Generally, the left hand owns the R, D, C, and all keys to their left, especially the Shift. The right hand owns Y, G, V, and all letters to their right. They seem to share custody of the T and F. I can't explain it.

  9. #29
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Cary, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Reilly View Post
    Any teachers out there or parents of kids in high school? Do the high schools still regularly offer typing?
    My son just finished seventh grade, but when he was in elementary school, they had a keyboarding "session". I wouldn't call it a class like when I took typing in high school (that was back when they still had vocational classes as a track you could take: home ec, agriculture, auto mechanics, bookkeeping, etc.). He can't type officially, but he knows where all the keys are and can do ok. He has to look still. That's the thing I prize about the typing class. I can type without looking at the keyboard.
    Duke '96
    Cary, NC

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Reilly View Post
    Any teachers out there or parents of kids in high school? Do the high schools still regularly offer typing?
    High school teacher here, our division does not offer typing classes at the high school level. There are classes that teach the use of Office products, programming, and all sorts of other cool things but I think typing has been pushed down to the elementary/middle school level.

  11. #31

    Hybrid Theory

    I took typing in junior high (c. 1980) but didn't continue to use it - I hand wrote most papers through HS. Got to Duke and used a typewriter for most papers, but was very rusty on which fingers hit which keys. But I had a sense of it and basically forced myself to keep my fingers in the "home position" - ASDF on the left hand pinky through index, and JKL; on the right hand. From there, any key I need to reach I would figure out which finger was easiest to reach it, subject to the condition that my other home fingers not leave their own keys. Over time I got quicker and quicker with practice, I think 70 wpm within a year or so of my first job, which used an IBM PC (I allowed myself a greater speed once on the computer, knowing mistakes were easily fixed).

    So my experience is that you can get pretty fast outside of a class, but know where to place your fingers, force yourself to keep your hands positioned that way, and build speed through practice.

  12. #32
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Atlanta, Georgia

    Typewriter Man

    I learned to type on a manual machine as a freshman in high school. A very useful skill, and I developed some proficiency through the years typing my high school papers and during summer jobs. One year at Duke I lived next to Bob Zwirko and Mike Hampshin, and they dubbed me "Typewriter Man." I typed their term papers and removed a thorn from Hampshin's paw; in exchange, they didn't kill me.

  13. #33
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Richmond, Va
    First semester, 9th grade (Roosevelt Roads HS, on the base in Puerto Rico), typing class, 35wpm, like Bob Green, barely passed.

    I don't use all my fingers today, just index fingers, but know where everything is

  14. #34
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Mary's Place
    I went to an all-boys Catholic high school, and Brother Michael was the typing instructor. He was long past retirement age, pleasantly eccentric, and asserted that we would be able to type at least 40 wpm by the end of the semester. "You need 40 wpm to pass the civil service test, and a government job might be the best that some of you gentlemen can hope to achieve." We used electric typewriters (it was a long time ago), some of which were Pica and some Elite. (I've forgotten how many characters per line for each).

    Moving forward to the current century, the young Turks were taught something called "keyboarding" the during last year of grade school I believe. It wasn't a separate class, just part of "tech ed". Once I was typing away and my youngest came up and asked me a question. I looked at her and said "just let me finish this" but didn't look back down at the keyboard. Her eyes bugged out and she asked, "How can you DO that?!?" (They're not so easily impressed anymore).

    I don't type much longform, just short bursts of a paragraph or two, and then revising and tinkering. I tried a couple online tests, and both were around 50+ wpm after getting deducted for errors. This laptop has a small keyboard (13" screen), so I think with my big ol' paws I would do better on a regulation desktop keyboard. I've used such a mishmash of computers over the years that my finger positioning has gotten a bit careless, but I'm pretty good with the keyboard shortcuts for cut-n-paste and other editing tasks. I think it wouldn't be too hard to hit 60-65 error-free with some practice.
    "Quality is not an option!"

  15. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by brevity View Post
    I was clocked at 67 wpm officially several years ago and averaged about 60 wpm in a series of online tests today.
    Okay, once I read about online tests, I had to give it a try. I just scored 66 and 72 on two tries at some random site where you type a random list of words for one minute. I would have sworn I was going faster, but at least my accuracy was 85% and 90% respectively. (I went back to correct most of the typos, decreasing speed, but increasing accuracy).

    I think that I type "correctly" -- I was taught in middle school at some point. I use an ergonomic keyboard which forces you to use the "right" fingers for the keys in the middle.

    What little speed I have I developed while writing papers and taking notes.

  16. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by cato View Post
    ... What little speed I have I developed while writing papers and taking notes.
    Read a newspaper (or, I guess, online) article w/in the past couple of weeks about a study (I think) showing that folks retain more information if they take notes by hand, rather than typing (like on a laptop). IIRC, the gist was we think more and put the information in our own words when writing by hand, and we are more apt to just take down the information verbatim when typing, and not think about it so much.

  17. #37
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Ashburn, VA
    I just tested myself at http://www.typeonline.co.uk/typingspeed.php and got 112* WPM but with 4 mistakes (plus I backspaced to correct 3 along the way I knew I made). I still feel like I go much more slowly and less accurately than before I ever did the Dvorak switch (and return to Qwerty).

    Of course I was trying to fly through that test and usually type a bit slower for things like message boards and the like.


    * on a different site I got 96 wpm, and with more mistakes.

  18. #38
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Back in Vegas... again.
    Quote Originally Posted by Reilly View Post
    Read a newspaper (or, I guess, online) article w/in the past couple of weeks about a study (I think) showing that folks retain more information if they take notes by hand, rather than typing (like on a laptop). IIRC, the gist was we think more and put the information in our own words when writing by hand, and we are more apt to just take down the information verbatim when typing, and not think about it so much.
    Taking notes by hand is strongly encouraged in law school, but I'd say that 95% of students still use their laptops.

    I tried hand-writing the first week of class 1L year. Tooooo slow, so that was the end of that. But also, with wifi, the distractions are never-ending on a laptop. Not that I'd really know, or anything.

  19. #39
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Walnut Creek, California
    Quote Originally Posted by sue71 View Post
    Taking notes by hand is strongly encouraged in law school, but I'd say that 95% of students still use their laptops.

    I tried hand-writing the first week of class 1L year. Tooooo slow, so that was the end of that. But also, with wifi, the distractions are never-ending on a laptop. Not that I'd really know, or anything.
    Going back to 1L some 50 years ago, I hand-wrote my notes, but quickly learned I couldn't always decipher them later. And the upperclassmen always said you needed to review, review, and review. Taking their advice, I began typing my notes at the end of each day, adding appropriate asides and cites with relevant keynotes. Things got markedly better when I did that. Reviewing became easier and you could almost always scope out exam issues.

    Any bar passers remember dependent relative revocation? Always on the wills exam. And never seen in real life.

  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim3k View Post
    ... I began typing my notes at the end of each day ...
    A hallmate of mine at Duke would do the same: handwritten notes during class, then re-type them (or summarize them further) on a typewriter in the late afternoon when classes were done. When I heard the clack-clack of the electric typewriter, I knew he was in his room, and so it was time for me to stop by ... it was important that I stopped by b/c his parents would send him these huge -- maybe 5 lbs(?) -- bags of M&Ms that he kept in a big cannister. The re-typing struck me as a really good, every-day way to study as you go along, and really help learn the material. Sort of the tortoise slow-and-steady approach. So he learned the material, and I got the daily, free handfuls of M&M's.

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