Keyboarding Again… I Can Live With That

So, as a follow up to my previous posts about typing and keyboarding practice

• Necessity for Keyboarding Skills in Elementary School? and
• Keyboarding Program at Elementary Schools )

here is a lesson that worked well with our 4th graders.

After explaining to students what a time saver it would be for them to be able to type with 10 fingers, rather than with 2 pecking ones, I went on to tell them, that there was a way to measure how fast they type. Just as cars drive MPH, we can tell how fast a typer is by checking their WPM (Words per Minute). That seemed to make sense to them.

We directed them to the following Typing Test. They all chose 3 minutes and picked their own text to type from a list of 5 different ones (Wizard of Oz, a Zebra kind, Enchanged Typwtriter, etc. ) They were allowed to try it several times and note the WPM they reached each time.

On the SmartBoard we had created an Excel spreadsheet with their names and a column for their WPM score. As they finished the test, they came to the front and recorded the number in the appropriate cell using the smartboard on screen keyboard. I inserted a graphic that also showed them their score as a bar graph. It was great to see the students compare and go back to try to improve their score to see the bar rise higher.

So, technically speaking , this was a spreadsheet-data-graphing-smartboard lesson where students generated their own data by practicing their typing. I can live with that.

Each student also received a typing log, to be completed at home by practicing on any of the web based typing practice sites. Teachers will assign the appropriate amount of time they are required to practice per week as homework. We will repeat the typing test at reasonable intervals to check, record and evaluate their progress together.