As long as a school has access to several computers, I do think it's a great thing for a teacher to work on keyboarding. I do, however understand that there is not a lot of extra time in the day to teach a keyboarding lesson. I feel that keyboarding lessons would need to come in the initial part of the school year, ideally. Once the students know the basic skills they need, they will just be allowed time for practice throughout the year. One of the literacy centers could be made and so that students are able to practice their typing skills. Aside from this, students can also be encouraged to practice their keyboarding skills at home. I have never thought about teaching my students their keyboarding skills at a young age, but it is a life skill that they are going to need to learn. The earlier, the better.
I absolutely agree with you about being excited when you learn how to type effectively. You are then able to communicate in so many different avenues. Also, once you have the basics down and you begin to use keyboarding more often you exponentially better at using it! You also make a good point about teaching keyboarding at the beginning of the year- this makes perfect sense so you've gotten it out of the way and can move on to other technologies. I love the idea of using keyboarding as a technology center, particularly with many of the websites we found in class.
ReplyDeleteThink about the implications it has for us in terms of using technology in the elementary classroom. When students do have those skills, at a reasonable level, we can do a lot in our classrooms! But, we have a ways to go!
ReplyDelete