[Bridging_the_digital_divide] Can you be a techie if you can't type?

Tue Aug 3 12:18:53 EDT 2004

Can you be a techie if you can't type?
By Rebecca L. Weber | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

  Once a week at John Eaton Public School No. 160, each class comes to 
the computer lab for a session with teacher Susan Eastman. Kids pull an 
orange plastic cover over the keyboard so that they can't look at the 
letters and they power on the "Type to Learn" software.

  Ms. Eastman's computer classes at this Washington, D.C., elementary 
school used to focus on using technology to enhance academic skills. 
But three years ago, after watching some kids spend as long as 10 
minutes searching for the letters to enter a single Google query, she 
decided to start formally teaching touch-typing.

Now her students in grades three through six are working their way 
through the self-guided lessons.

In some schools, typing classes disappeared at least a couple of 
decades ago. A skill that once seemed vital - particularly to prepare 
young women for secretarial jobs - no longer appeared relevant in an 
age that urged more kids to consider going on to at least some form of 
higher education.

And yet, argue some teachers, the ability to touch-type - or to 
"keyboard," the term more often used today - has perhaps never been 
more essential.

"You can't word process unless you can keyboard," Ms. Eastman says. 
"You can't use the Internet, you can't instant message. For some kids 
with learning disabilities, for those who have messy handwriting, or 
for whom holding a pencil is awkward, it opens so many tools."

Yet many students are not given formal instruction in keyboarding 
skills.

On the one hand, schools and the workplace have increased expectations 
about basic computer skills, and schools offer most children fairly 
wide access to computers. But according to the Department of 
Education's latest report, fewer students than ever before are taking 
typing or keyboarding classes.

Of course, it's not practical to offer such classes to very young 
students. Most children don't have the manual dexterity to touch type 
before grade three or four. Most of Eastman's students type at or below 
10 words per minute before they work their way through the beginning 
lessons (about the same speed as they write with a pencil). For her 
sixth-graders, speeds of 25 to 35 wpm are typical.

Today, 30 wpm is often fast enough for a permanent job as an executive 
secretary, according to Ruthi Postow of Ruthi Postow Staffing. 
Twenty-five years ago, 50 wpm - tested with an egg timer - was a 
prerequisite for an administrative assistant position.

Ms. Postow says she rarely sees typists with those kinds of skills. And 
the speedy typists she does encounter, she says, don't necessarily have 
an edge in the job market.

Clients today generally don't specify a minimum speed. "More and more, 
people care about great computer skills. The administration field is 
more appealing now to college graduates," Postow says.

Document preparation is more likely to involve importing graphics and 
special formatting than entering text. "You don't have to keep 
reinventing the wheel with repetitive documents," says Postow.

For the most part, executives today answer their own e-mail and jot 
down their own notes. "I had a request for shorthand and everybody was 
laughing," she says. "Nobody does that anymore."

High schools and colleges today rarely require students to acquire 
touch-typing skills.

Stanley Johnson, director of instructional technology for the District 
of Columbia Public Schools, agrees that being proficient in technology 
today is much broader than keyboarding.

"We've seen recently the proliferation of cellphones, digital cameras, 
PDAs," Mr. Johnson says. These new forms of technology are proving to 
be "just as powerful" as the written word, he adds. "Digital literacy 
skills need to be introduced as well."

The district is currently studying some fourth and fifth graders to see 
if another software program, "Almena Teaches Touch Typing," 
significantly improves their word processing output.

Johnson notes that many kids have computers at home, which helps their 
overall performance. Often, however, keyboards at home are designed for 
larger hands, which impedes touch-typing. In elementary classrooms, 
keyboards are smaller.

Johnson emphasizes that it's output that is most important. "Lots of 
kids today already have the fundamental stuff in place, even though 
they may not have the correct finger placement that's used in a 
traditional keyboarding class," he says.

Keyboarding classes are still offered at the senior high schools in the 
District. Johnson says enrollment overall has been "steady," though in 
some instances it has dipped because kids get in and find they already 
have the basic computer skills offered in the class.

"That's the challenge: are we preparing them for our world, or the 
world they're going to inherit? I can't tell you what input device 
we'll have in 10 years, but 10 years ago I didn't think I'd have a 
tablet that takes my handwriting and converts it to text. Whatever 
technology is or becomes, the kids have to be able to transfer their 
skills."

Even with the increase of tablet PCs and voice recognition technology, 
keyboards are going to be around for the foreseeable future. One added 
benefit of teaching keyboarding to the youngest learners, at least for 
Eastman: her own typing speed has improved.
On SATs, handwriting counts

In 1871 the Remington Typewriter Company's slogan proclaimed that 
typewriters were the new thing and that schools, pens, and paper would 
soon be obsolete.

But Kate Gladstone - the "Handwriting Repairwoman" of Albany, N.Y. - is 
happy to report that nothing could be further from the truth.

Ms. Gladstone, who teaches the fine art of handwriting, has enjoyed an 
influx of customers since the College Board announced that one of the 
SAT sections will be handwritten starting in 2005. Other local and 
regional tests, such as the MCAS in Massachusetts, also require 
students to write by hand.

"Parents, teachers, sometimes kids call and say, 'I need to be able to 
write legibly at high speed! Is it even humanly possible?', " she says.

But some teachers say they have students who want to learn good 
penmanship simply because it's an art.

Matt Brockwell, who until recently taught 8- and 9-year-olds in 
Jefferson Elementary School in Oakland, Calif., had just one computer 
in his classroom. Mr. Brockwell says it didn't occur to him to teach 
keyboarding. A few kids took it upon themselves to type their own 
compositions, but most used their computer time for other activities. 
And, he says, they were very interested in learning cursive.

"At that age, they want physical skills they can show their 
classmates," Brockwell explains, "like dance moves or gymnastics - or 
to be able to write their name in flowering, flowing script. Skills 
that have an immediate show-off value are hugely popular," he says.

Rigid notions about handwriting may discourage some students from 
viewing the skill as a creative process, says Gladstone. For instance, 
she insists, there's no evidence that writing in cursive is faster than 
printing, and printing isn't necessarily neater than cursive. Those who 
write faster by hand tend to have taken elements from both, she says.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0803/p14s01-legn.html

---

Jason Barkeloo
President
TouchSmart Publishing
http://www.touchsmart.net
t: 513.225.8765
f: 206.666.4856

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