The youngsters in my house are reaching the age where they need to start developing their computer literacy, and one of the things I realized we need to do is teach them how to touch type. This is a topic that I have not thought about since I was…in Grade 6? I can only imagine that the field has changed slightly since then…
I did a few cursory searches and didn’t really come up with anything particularly compelling. That said, I’m not sure what exactly “compelling” would constitute in a teaching typing app.
I was wondering if anyone from the community has confronted this lately and has any suggestions I could check out! Just for reference the main user would be 9 years old, and the younger is 7.
Anything that holds their interest should do. But I’m too old to know what’s out there now. I learned using a typing class textbook of my father’s from the 1930’s on a manual typewriter. My kids (around 1980) basically learned from osmosis from the computer at home because there were no computers in the schools yet.
Keep in mind that typing, in the not to distant future, will be considered an archaic skill much like cursive handwriting today.
I’m trying to learn to touch type in Dvorak and I use TypeFu. It seems to be working. I like that you can set it to teach you almost any keyboard layout.
Interesting tidbit. When I was a kid my mom forbid me from learning to type because she didn’t want me to be pigeonholed as a secretary. However, my husband was encouraged to learn to touch type by his parents because they didn’t want him to have to depend on a secretary. Interesting take on roles base don the gender of the person as perceived in the past.
