Keyboarding

On Monday we discussed the teaching of keyboarding at the elementary level. I think this is a topic that has always been on the 'back-burner' in my mind. Whenever we plan for technology lessons (particularly when planning them for our future classrooms in our college classes) we are always able to assume our students have the background knowledge we need them to have. However, welcome to the real world! Chances are in elementary school a good portion of the children will have little knowledge of technology, let alone keyboarding skills. There are many programs that don't require keyboarding but it's a huge obstacle for most programs. In class we discussed the pros of teaching keyboarding and the one that stood out the most to me is the fact that keyboarding is such an integral part of society. Many job application are online and require typing not to mention that the majority of our societies communication requires keyboarding knowledge. Therefore, regardless of whether or not we want to teach it, we must teach it. It's important for us to become familiar with our school's program or find one that works for us. I also really like the websites we found yesterday to help practice those skills. It never hurts to make learning fun!