Not sure there’s a difference, but in my class we started out with the basics – the home row. We typed asdf asdf asdf sasdf fdsa fds sadf aasdf dsfasf asddfs over and over again until we got to a certain accuracy and speed (as measured by the software). Then we added jkl; ;lkj klj klj l;k kl kj lkj;lj ;lkj klj and then merged the two into asdfjkl; kajklsd;f asdjfkld asdf;lkasdjf etc.
So after a few days of that we added g and h and then the letters on the above and below row. Eventually we moved onto numbers and punctuation.
Eventually, we did the same drills again, but with parts of the keyboard covered up with opaque key covers so we couldn’t see the keys. Home row drills again, then common words, then sentences and numbers and punctuation, etc.
Most of these were done with a combination of repetitive drills and (as a “reward”) quizzes that functioned like games. Shoot-the-aliens-with-your-typing or help-the-frog-cross-the-road-by-spelling-letters, etc. Eventually all of that was combined into paragraph-long typing tests.
Keep in mind this process lasted a few years, maybe an hour or two a week, from late elementary to halfway through middle school. After that you were expected to apply what you knew to writing your papers.
ETA: You can find a lot of typing programs online to try it out for yourself if you want to see how they’re done. Back then they were much the same, just with worse graphics and special effects.
My kids all learned touch typing fingering on a keyboard in elementary school around the time I remember doing drills of writing in cursive (script) letters, which they totally didn’t do. They spent about 1, maybe 2 weeks on writing in script, in order to learn to write their own names so their legal signatures wouldn’t be in… Well, whatever the term is for “ordinary handwritten words”. Which evidently is not accepted on legal documents at least some of the time.
They can all touch type to varying degrees of proficiency, helped along by the fact that I have a blank “Das Keyboard” attached to the fastest computer in the household with dual HD screens. If they want to use lettered keyboards, they have to use now underpowered PCs I put together for them back in 2003 that can’t run Minecraft.
There are some things in my typing class that would probably not get taught in a keyboarding class, like how to use correction tape, how to set the tab stops on an electric typewriter, or (possibly) where to hyphenate words.
We covered typing in the first half of computer class in 6th grade (this in the mid-late 90’s). This was right at the time when PCs started to be found in most homes, and the beginning of the golden age (such as it was) of AOL dial-up. In 6th grade maybe 60% of my peers had computers in their homes, but many didn’t have internet access. By 8th grade virtually everyone had a computer with internet access in their home.
We used a program that taught us a few letters at a time, first the home row then slowly adding in one or two letters a day. We typed out gibberish until we got to a specified proficiency, then called the teacher over to “pass” us to the next section. The teacher would hold a screen over our hands so we couldn’t see the keyboard, and we would transcribe several lines of text at a certain speed with an acceptable error rate, with the teacher watching over our shoulders for proper posture, finger placement, etc. It took maybe 2 marking periods to become proficient (I remember typing around 100 gwam, which is MUCH faster than I currently type). After that we learned basic word processing (not sure which program, but it wasn’t Word).
We had been using computers in school since 1st grade, and most of us had computers in our homes, but we definitely didn’t know how to type properly until we were instructed (at least the vast majority didn’t). In 7th grade we learned more advanced word processing (different ways to format a letter, resume, or essay, etc) and the basics of spreadsheets.
In my early 90’s class, I remember us doing meaningful sentences like “Ask a lass” and “Ask a lad” near the beginning that involved only the home row. We added letters as we went along. I don’t remember any other sentences, but if we had added only “e” we could have done “Lead a lass” or “a lass leads a lad”.
Two things:
One has been covered – you are rarely typing up from a written page any more; you’re composing as you go. Sure, it’s still an advantage to look at the screen as you type, but it’s not that much of an advantage.
Second is the Backspace key It’s simply a lot easier to fix typos than it was on a typewriter, so accuracy can be sacrificed for speed (and the gain in speed more than offsets the loss of time going back and fixing typos)
When in college during the early 1990’s I would just hunt and peck, but as the school year progressed hitting the keys would become second nature to me until what I was doing was essentially touch typing. Then, over the summer, I would barely touch my computer (or at least I wouldn’t type any term papers, etc.) and when the new year started I would be back to hunting and pecking.
When my kids were, what? 3rd or 4th grade maybe, I found a freeware game – DOS based, no less – that taught touch typing. They both loved it, and played it enough to get the fingering down. Never looked back.
For my typing class (1970s), the following were covered:
[ul][li]Posture.[/li][li]Importance of not looking at the keyboard.[/li][li]Home row.[/li][li]Which keys off the home row correspond to each of the home row keys (i.e., which finger to use to strike those keys).[/li][li]How to compute typing speed.[/li][li]Some pretty cool typing games. The only one I really liked was the one where you’re given instructions like “RETURN 5 times, SPACE BAR 20 times, @ 10 times, SPACE 3 times, X 5 times” and the like. That was to generate some pictures. The teacher would hand out those games as rewards for finishing the day’s assignment early. Wish I could find some of those for word processing.[/ul][/li]
For the computer program I use to practice typing in 한글 (Korean), the following are covered:
[ul][li]Posture.[/li][li]Importance of not looking at the keyboard.[/li][li]Home row.[/li][li]Which keys off the home row correspond to each of the home row keys (i.e., which finger to use to strike those keys).[/li][li]How to compute typing speed.[/li][li]Some pretty cool typing games (you can set it for Korean or for English; surprisingly, you can even select the Dvorak layout for English). The one I like the most is the one which starts out “shooting” single letters at your character. You type the character and the “missile” disappears. After destroying enough missiles, you advance to the next level which has single syllable words for the missiles. The following level has multi-syllable words. Then the speed increases for the next levels. I’m a pretty fast typist in either language, but I still enjoy this game.[/ul][/li]
Honestly, it drives me up the wall when I see people typing by using, say, their right index finger to strike the R key. Why would you decide to do that when your left middle finger is already right next to that key?
Maybe this is different for different people, but I find copying VASTLY more difficult than typing from my head.
I learned by typing from my head and I do that 99.9% of the time. So my brain has learned how to master this information flow. I am looking at the screen and get real-time feedback about accuracy, and mostly importantly, current position.
Looking at another sheet of paper and copying is a very different animal. I constantly lose my place, I can’t remember if I typed the second “t” in “button”, and I know errors are all over the place which makes my concentration even more difficult.
My wife says that women type and men keyboard. She is only partly joking. What this refers to is that when we were in HS (early to mid 1950s) typing was taught almost exclusively to women and very few men learned. So when computers make it necessary, men called it keyboarding to distinguish it from what women did. My wife went to a women’s college and all papers were required to be typed. A few students earned a fair bit of money typing other students’ papers. I went to a coed school and never turned in a typed paper in my life. Different expectations.
Here is an interesting story. In 1980, a couple years before I thought it possible that I might want a computer, I had acquired an IBM Selectric. I was dissatisfied with the typists in my office and had a vague idea that I would type my own papers. My two older kids were 14 and 13 and the three of us spent the summer teaching ourselves to type. We used a book called something like “Teach yourself typing”, vintage about 1945. All three of us really learned to touch type. I never got very fast, maybe 20-30 WPM, but it was real touch typing. Well, my daughter went on to type. But my son now types using just three fingers, both index fingers and the right middle finger. He is very fast, much faster than me, but does not touch type.
I’ve never had any typing/keyboarding classes at school in the UK. I’m 26, and like many people my age I’ve grown up with computers, and used them since I was very young. I’ve simply learned to type naturally, without any tuition or direction. I don’t type using any particular method, so I know I’m probably committing many cardinal typing sins. But now you’ve got my thinking about what I’m actually doing…
I rest the index finger of my right hand on n, my middle/ring/pinky on i, o and p. I rest the index finger of my left hand on d, the middle on e, and the ring finger on w (pinky is sort of hovering nebulously over caps-lock, even though I never use it). I generally only use these fingers, my thumbs aren’t used at all. I get a comfortable 75-85WPM in tests, but score higher if I’m actually trying to be fast. I never need to look at the keyboard.
I’ve never felt like I need to type faster, nor have I ever felt like my technique needs improving. It works for me, and I guess that’s all that matters.
Our middle school requires a semester course called “Information Technology” during the eighth grade year. We have a variety of other computer-based classes, including ones on web design, media literacy, and video editing, but Info Tech covers touch typing (okay, “keyboarding”), creating documents in Word, using Dropbox, the finer points of email (our kids know about BCC and not forwarding emails with their original list of recipients attached), backing up files, and how to talk to printers. Our computer teacher tells me she spends a fair amount of time breaking kids of the bad typing habits they’ve accumulated over the years.
Probably a better way to have said this was that I, as well as most other people I know, are self taught out of necessity. For example, Pyper stated that he learned to type by spending hours Instant Messaging his friends. If I was born a couple of generations ago, you probably couldn’t have gotten me to practice using a typewriter at gunpoint. However, with adolescents, teenagers, and college students voluntarily spending much of their leisure time sitting in front of a computer typing away there’s no need for formal instruction.
If you look at Post #36, you might reconsider. “It works for me” is fine for some, even many, things and situations. But if you try typing that way and then try typing the way touch typing is usually taught (left little finger on a, ring finger on s, middle finger on d, index finger on f; right index finger on j, middle finger on k, ring finger on l, little finger on ;), you’ll be surprised at how much better touch typng works for you.
I just tryed typing the way Fake Tales of San Francisco describes and the right hand position (s)he uses is simply uncomfortable for me. Also the left hand position described makes one hand do vastly more work than the other, not to mention the left little finger is almost out of the action, so to speak, compared to the other fingers of that hand.
Fake Tales of San Francisco: I wouldn’t call your described typing as a cardinal sin. I just find it uncomfortable and don’t see how you make it work without looking at the keyboard the majority of the time you spend typing/keyboarding. The whole idea of touch typing is to type without looking at the keyboard.
ETA: When I’m IMing with my nieces or nephews, they almost always tell me they’re suprised at how quickly I respond. I wondered about that until I watched a couple of them type. Not a one of them–and, according to the, none of their friends–uses anything at all resembling touch typing. Yes, touch typing is a skill. But it’s one that doesn’t take that long to learn and with today’s reality of communicating so much via computer, it’s not that hard to get plenty of practice using it.
Like a lot of things—like driving—you can never really master it unless you stop thinking and just do. When I’m copying text, my mind is blank and I don’t really have much idea what I’m seeing or typing. If I start thinking about what I’m doing, I start making mistakes and slowing down. Really good copyists can even carry on a conversation while doing it.
It’s simply a lot easier to fix typos than it was on a typewriter, so accuracy can be sacrificed for speed (and the gain in speed more than offsets the loss of time going back and fixing typos)