Teach Keyboarding skills or not? That is the question. I have come to the conclusion that it is important. But are we expected to teach keyboarding now as well as everything else in the curriculum? Not necessarily! Here are some ideas that could get your children started in keyboarding with minimum effort from you, or you could join in and learn to type at the same time :-)
Typing Card Practice. Print these out, cut out individually and laminate. Everytime a child goes to the computer, they get a new card, stick it to the side of the screen, open up word processor and copy the card. It is important that they have a buddy standing by to check that they are using all the correct fingers. They can then record their progress on an individual tracking sheet These can also be setup in a learning centre and used with the laminated keyboards, see below.
Which keys are for which fingers? Print out Keyboard Fingers picture and put it in your keyboard learning centre. Change your page setup to Landscape before printing.
(Updated)
Set up a learning centre with keyboards and
Typing
Sentence Practice Cards
Print out, photocopy and laminate keyboards enough for half of the class, or glue the printout in the back of the handwriting books Use them for quick 2 minute drills before Handwriting lessons. Pair students up, one does the drill, the other watches to check that they are using the correct fingers.
 | Windows standard keyboard |
| Windows junior keyboard |
| Apple standard keyboard |
| Apple junior keyboard |
|
Colour Keyboard (Mac
and Win)
Typing Champion Game (New)
If you have old Macs pre System 8 they will have an old version of Mavis Beacon installed. Straight away you have a new activity for your Keyboard centre. Use the WordProcessing programmes (Works, Word, Claris, Notepad etc) available on the old computers for Typing practice, adapt some of the activities from this web page. Set up a
monitoring/checklist that children have to
complete with all of the Keyboarding activities. This checklist could run for
the whole year.
|
Have you got
any old computers sitting around the school doing nothing? They are perfect
for your Keyboard Centre. 
