Education & Work Keyboard Typing - should I take the time to learn to type properly?

Discussion in 'Living Room' started by Gockie, 24th Sep, 2015.

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  1. 2FAST4U

    2FAST4U Well-Known Member

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    Depends how fast you can type. If you can already type 100 wpm than it's not worth it. However, if you can only type around 50 wpm or less it's definitely worth investing some time into learning.
     
    2FAST4U, 25th Sep, 2015
    #41
  2. Tim86

    Tim86 Well-Known Member

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    So easy to learn, I taught myself in my school holidays between grade 10 and grade 11 because I knew I'd need it for senior years with all the assignments.

    I was about 40wpm touch typing within 2 or 3 weeks of putting in an hour per day.

    Now I'm 70wpm according to this test: http://www.typingtest.com

    Nothing too fancy but it gets me by.

    Good skill to have. You don't want to be shown up by some 8yo that can type quicker than you :)
     
    Tim86, 26th Sep, 2015
    #42
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  3. Lizzie

    Lizzie Well-Known Member

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    if you learn to touch type, you are looking at the screen rather than the keyboard so you'd instantly realise the caps lock is on ... :D
     
    Lizzie, 27th Sep, 2015
    #43
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  4. MTR

    MTR Well-Known Member

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    Curious, do you know/ take shorthand??
    I am sure many will not have a clue what this is, not old enough:p... and this one died many years ago
     
    MTR, 28th Sep, 2015
    #44
  5. wylie

    wylie Moderator Staff Member

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    I did shorthand too. That got me promoted very quickly but back then, when I left work to have our second child, the menfolk were just starting to type their own reports, computers were just starting to appear on desks and it was the start of the end for typists as we knew it. That was 1992 in a big four bank. Mobile phones were just starting. In 1990, it was still fairly novel to see people on their mobile "bricks". My perception was that if you saw someone with a mobile "brick" they were either a real estate agent or someone really, really important :D.

    I also remember when my mother left real estate in 1989 to mind our first baby. Nobody had mobiles. In late 1991 when I left to have our second baby, she went back to selling houses, and within that short time, all agents had a mobile "brick".

    Regarding shorthand, my (very senior position) boss played solitaire on his computer and I took shorthand from him :p. He was 52 at the time and wasn't going to bother learning anything new when he had his own secretary he was happy with.

    In college I reached 140wpm and started training for court reporting work. I got to 150wpm and took a bank job instead. I'm glad I did because court reporting was (probably still is) a very high pressure, high stress job.

    I still use shorthand when I want to take notes. With fast typing speed and shorthand, I dislike writing in longhand. It takes too long.
     
    wylie, 28th Sep, 2015
    #45
  6. Simon Hampel

    Simon Hampel Founder Staff Member

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    Typing is mostly "muscle memory" ... once your brain has learned how to do it, it is automatic - indeed if you stop to think about what your fingers are doing, they will do the wrong thing (at least in my experience).

    Like @Kinnon Bell - I am self-taught and don't do it "correctly", but am still very fast.

    I was already pretty competent on the keyboard by the time I got to uni, but then spending many hours using IRC and other chat systems where there were often multiple conversations going on at once and you had to type fast or get left behind - you do learn very quickly how to type fast!

    Perhaps do a uni course which involves writing a lot of long essays - that will give you a lot of practice! Alternatively - just find something you can transcribe - get a document holder or something and find something long and wordy you can print, put it in the holder and then type it out. The more you do it, the better you will get.

    Try and get to the point where you don't think about the keyboard - it just happens automatically.
     
    Simon Hampel, 28th Sep, 2015
    #46
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  7. THX

    THX Well-Known Member

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    Likewise. I am self taught, and the one time I attempted to learn the correct way I failed miserably. I can type as fast or faster than the ''correct'' way anyway so no big deal. It's strange but I type so much that and without thought (the act of typing not my comments though some might argue otherwise) that I find it strange to realise many people can't type :D
     
    THX, 28th Sep, 2015
    #47
  8. Ben Chifley

    Ben Chifley Well-Known Member

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    I think we must be of the same era -

    Touch-typing was probably the only skill my crappy school taught me that actually helped me a lot in life - at least in white-collar type work. Boys were encouraged to take typing at my school because it was the great coming-of-age of computers and everyone was going to need to be a keyboard jockey; big old manual typewriters with an ancient flip-book text that taught you where the keys were by rote-learning.

    I had a real a-hole of a teacher - he used to hit you with a ruler if he caught you looking at your fingers (you'd be sacked for that now!) and he was incredibly rude and patronising. I did typing for only one semester and nearly failed - the same teacher wrote on my report that he thought I would never be a competent typist - but as with everything you get better with practice and it's a skill I would not want to be without now.
     
    Ben Chifley, 28th Sep, 2015
    #48
  9. Simon Hampel

    Simon Hampel Founder Staff Member

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    My father was a junior primary teacher and would print out a computer keyboard layout on a piece of paper and stick it to every desk in the classroom. I think they practised typing on their "keyboards" for a short period every day or something like that.

    Would have been interesting to test the kids throughout the year to see whether it did actually help them beyond basic familiarity (minimising the "hunt" aspect of "hunt and peck").

    Interestingly, with the increasing use of tablet computers - especially in the home replacing traditional desktop and laptop computers, typing on a real keyboard may actually be something the next generation of kids struggle with somewhat when they get to higher levels of education where it actually becomes important. I guess like everything, they'll pick it up quickly enough when they need it.
     
    Simon Hampel, 28th Sep, 2015
    #49
  10. MTR

    MTR Well-Known Member

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    A blast from the past, mobile "bricks"
    Short hand
    You left your job to have a baby.
    Apparently there was a time that public servants (females) had to resign once they had children.

    Typing is a great skills to have, I am not as fast as you.
     
    MTR, 28th Sep, 2015
    #50
  11. wylie

    wylie Moderator Staff Member

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    My mother had to leave her public service job as soon as she got married :eek:
     
    wylie, 28th Sep, 2015
    #51
  12. MTR

    MTR Well-Known Member

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    The world was crazy, still is:), but thankfully some things have changed. These days families need two incomes to survive.
     
    MTR, 28th Sep, 2015
    #52
  13. Gockie

    Gockie Life is good ☺️ Premium Member

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    Holy Heck. I've only tried to focus on touch typing for a couple of days now bur I can already see an improvement (in that I can type stuff and not look at the keyboard at all)...
     
    Gockie, 28th Sep, 2015
    #53
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  14. Sonamic

    Sonamic Well-Known Member

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    This for me was circa 84. Back when typing was a stereotypical female subject, taught by female teachers. As an aside I also studied Dance in year 11 and 12. 58 girls and only 2 guys. And my mates couldn't work out why I took dance. Lol!

    Sounds like your teacher had the "get better with practice" down pat on the a-hole front. But maybe his peers were ribbing him for teaching a "girly" subject. :rolleyes:
     
    Sonamic, 28th Sep, 2015
    #54
  15. Ben Chifley

    Ben Chifley Well-Known Member

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    That stereotype was changing by the time I did it - we were told we'd all have white collar jobs on computers so there were a lot of boys in the class. Meanwhile the kids who did the trades were the real winners...

    And that teacher was just an a-hole through and through - one of those people that you realise in retrospect probably wasn't doing teaching because they liked children.
     
    Ben Chifley, 28th Sep, 2015
    #55
  16. jas

    jas Member

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    I went to a touch typing class in school. Everyone else went so they could become a secretary. I went so I could type my essays on my boyfriends computer faster :)
     
    jas, 29th Sep, 2015
    #56
  17. inertia

    inertia Well-Known Member

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    There is not much call for proper touch typing these days - unless you are typing volumes of materials. Given most interfaces are GUIs or people typing with their thumbs on phones these days, there is little call for it.
    However, being able to type without looking at the keyboard is certainly advantageous, and I don't think it is possible to achieve that without going through some attempt at touch typing properly ;)

    There are some games out there to help - space invader type things. Spend 10 minutes a day playing some and you will quickly improve.

    Inertia.
     
    inertia, 30th Sep, 2015
    #57
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