Poll of the Day > Keyboarding classes...

(+) Yeah! (+)

Did any of you ever take any? I took a few in school, IIRC. But I don't think they really helped. I still look at my keyboard often when typing. And I can, for the most part, type on a keyboard without looking, and go fast(with or without looking), but I think that's mostly from practice. Like just talking to people on here or whatever. Though, I think I'm better on the phone. Can definitely do that one without looking, and much faster...
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i learned key placement from playing WoW
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I picked it up as a kid waaay before it was a thing except for specialized schools for secretaries etc. I coded in Basic back on the APPLE IIC which I learned myself through a program called Logo.

I think touch myself to touch type, but somehow Id id it the right way (there must have been books or something back then).

I was always fast but after Muds came along, I both increased my typing speed drastically, and ruined any grammar/punctuation tendencies I might have had.

Who cares about that when something is trying to kill you, while you are talking to 5 people and planning the moves you need to make to get to your next kill without losing a round in combat.
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wolfy42 posted...

I think touch myself to touch type, but somehow Id id it the right way (there must have been books or something back then).

i think people used magazines, then vhs/dvd. now there is the internet
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Krazy_Kirby posted...

wolfy42 posted...

I think touch myself to touch type, but somehow Id id it the right way (there must have been books or something back then).

i think people used magazines, then vhs/dvd. now there is the internet

Lol.....Freudian slip (although honestly I don't think he would have looked very good in a slip).

That would be a good incentive to learn how to type though!!
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Yeah, like the required class but one or two more also. It did teach me a lot of basics of word, excel, ETC.
Touch typing just kinda came to me. I was pretty fast at 12 and 13, but leveled out to be comfortable.
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It helped me. Though I've lost some of my speed since I havent had a real need to type in a professional manner so the rare case that comes up I can be a tad slow.

Think I did 60 wpm with some mistakes (like just a few, usually a missed punctuation or something) and upper 30s wpm without mistakes when I took the class.

It was a required class at my high school.

I recall there being one key I wouldn't with the finger I was taught to but I did it my way anyways cause it just felt more right to me and I could hit it faster that way

I was actually fairly fast with hunt and Peck and was stubborn to learn at first due to that but I'm glad I learned it.
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Yes.

I took it because my school's keyboards were absolute shit (so I failed to pass it). It was an online course, and perhaps the most useless class I had ever taken.

I aced with with a 99.50 (since I accidentally skipped two small parts of the assignments by accident).

I don't even know how to "properly" type, but I only know how to type solely by "hunting and pecking", but fast and without ever looking at the keyboard, and instead looking at the screen. It's the only way I know how to type, and no amount of "proper" typing will ever fix that.

Can get way over 100 wpm without mistakes.

mooreandrew58 posted...

It helped me. Though I've lost some of my speed since I havent had a real need to type in a professional manner so the rare case that comes up I can be a tad slow.

Think I did 60 wpm with some mistakes (like just a few, usually a missed punctuation or something) and upper 30s wpm without mistakes when I took the class.

It was a required class at my high school.

I recall there being one key I wouldn't with the finger I was taught to but I did it my way anyways cause it just felt more right to me and I could hit it faster that way

I was actually fairly fast with hunt and Peck and was stubborn to learn at first due to that but I'm glad I learned it.

I have a feeling it was the B key.

Personally, I think qwerty should be deserted and people should choose whatever layout they want.
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pedro45 posted...

mooreandrew58 posted...

It helped me. Though I've lost some of my speed since I havent had a real need to type in a professional manner so the rare case that comes up I can be a tad slow.

Think I did 60 wpm with some mistakes (like just a few, usually a missed punctuation or something) and upper 30s wpm without mistakes when I took the class.

It was a required class at my high school.

I recall there being one key I wouldn't with the finger I was taught to but I did it my way anyways cause it just felt more right to me and I could hit it faster that way

I was actually fairly fast with hunt and Peck and was stubborn to learn at first due to that but I'm glad I learned it.

I have a feeling it was the B key.

Personally, I think qwerty should be deserted and people should choose whatever layout they want.

C I think actually I know it was my left hand.

And we have to have system to make teaching people easier. Qwerty was made for a reason. The letters are placed at least home row based on how often they are used

Nothing stopping you from changing it yourself if you have the know I how I'm betting.
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Keyboarding specifically? No. However, it was part of several computer classes. Like anything else, though, it's really a matter of practice and the bulk of your experience will *always* come from actual use.

It's especially true when you're trying to respond online, you don't have the time to look down and examine the keys. You have to know where things are. And, quite honestly, in recent years my typing isn't as fast. I used to type around 100 or 110 GWAM, but these days I might just do around 60 or 70 because I don't have as much need for rapid typing. And my typing speed is undermined by my tendency to over-edit, which often results in the introduction of new errors because I'll fix one thing but not the greater context.
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Qwerty is not built that way...it's Dvorak that has the main keys on home row.
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pedro45 posted...

Qwerty is not built that way...it's Dvorak that has the main keys on home row.

Not what they told me in class and I can tell you just from typing I hit more keys on home row than other keys.

Its been over a decade easily though so I may be wrong as trivial info like that wasn't the focus of the class.
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i did one in like my last year of high school when i'd already been typing for a billion years at that point. easiest A of my life
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Oh my god. Too many times, Every time, it was a requirement for something. Junior High and high school. two classes in college. If I have to take another keyboarding class, I'll do something drastic.
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Took a few in elementary school. They had these programs on Apple II's where you had to type out a paragraph as quickly and accurately as possible. If you failed, then the bridge wouldn't be built all the way and you got to watch a goblin thing try to cross and fall off. Once you got through that program though, they switched you over to a more boring one that just counted your WMP and accuracy.

Honestly, I learned more about typing from fooling around with QBasic and Visual Basic then I ever did in those classes.
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mooreandrew58 posted...

pedro45 posted...

Qwerty is not built that way...it's Dvorak that has the main keys on home row.

Not what they told me in class and I can tell you just from typing I hit more keys on home row than other keys.

Its been over a decade easily though so I may be wrong as trivial info like that wasn't the focus of the class.

You can type the whole word typewriter using the top row. If two vowels and the letters t and r are on the top row, I can just about guarantee you're bouncing all around your keyboard.
Check out Dvorak. It has all the vowels and common letters on the home row and it is setup for speed. It's slightly spread out between the two sides so your hands do equal work.
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pedro45 posted...

mooreandrew58 posted...

pedro45 posted...

Qwerty is not built that way...it's Dvorak that has the main keys on home row.

Not what they told me in class and I can tell you just from typing I hit more keys on home row than other keys.

Its been over a decade easily though so I may be wrong as trivial info like that wasn't the focus of the class.

You can type the whole word typewriter using the top row. If two vowels and the letters t and r are on the top row, I can just about guarantee you're bouncing all around your keyboard.
Check out Dvorak. It has all the vowels and common letters on the home row and it is setup for speed. It's slightly spread out between the two sides so your hands do equal work.

Makes sense, I read somewhere that QWERTY was originally invented to make people slow down while typing (since typewriters that the time couldn't keep up with some secretaries). Fast forward 145 years and we are still using it today.
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waterboarding classes u say
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Yeah, I took one once, and it helped.
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I took a typing class on an actual typewriter. An electric, fortunately, just the year before they were still using manual typewriters!

I took a keyboarding class in 9th grade but I was already a typist so easy A

Yes I took one in the 4th and 9th grades.

They did nothing. Posting on RP sites are what allowed me to type well.

btw, I have only gotten faster as I've gotten older. 5-10 years ago I'd hover around the 80-90wpm range.

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Before taking a keyboarding class in high school, I exclusively typed with two fingers. Learning to type ;
"properly" increased my speed a lot, but it took some practice to memorize locations.
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I took one freshman year if high school and basically never practiced at home.

I eventually took some online typing things from websites, which helped a lot.
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Dikitain posted...

pedro45 posted...

mooreandrew58 posted...

pedro45 posted...

Qwerty is not built that way...it's Dvorak that has the main keys on home row.

Not what they told me in class and I can tell you just from typing I hit more keys on home row than other keys.

Its been over a decade easily though so I may be wrong as trivial info like that wasn't the focus of the class.

You can type the whole word typewriter using the top row. If two vowels and the letters t and r are on the top row, I can just about guarantee you're bouncing all around your keyboard.
Check out Dvorak. It has all the vowels and common letters on the home row and it is setup for speed. It's slightly spread out between the two sides so your hands do equal work.

Makes sense, I read somewhere that QWERTY was originally invented to make people slow down while typing (since typewriters that the time couldn't keep up with some secretaries). Fast forward 145 years and we are still using it today.

Ok that does sound vaguely familiar. As said its been over a decade.

But I won't be checking out this other one I'm at a age where I'm set in my ways for the most part and don't feel like re learning to type.
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I had keyboarding in school in fifth through eighth grade (each grade was at a different school)

And in every one of those years I could type faster than the teacher or anybody else in the class.

My High School had a semester of touch typing as mandatory in grade 8 which is a bit surprising considering this was in the mid-90's.

It taught me the basics of touch typing, brought my speed up to probably 20 net wpm (which is atrocious as I'm sure you're aware). By grade 11 I decided to take a typing class just for the easy credit, already was typing about 70 net wpm by that time, I basically used the class as a study period, I'd knock out my in-class assignment and my homework in the first 15 min of class. If I had no homework from another class to work on I'd act as the teachers assistant.
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I took it for high school but games like MuDs and MMO's later down the line like EQ, Star Wars Galaxies, WoW made me much faster. Most people marvel at how fast I can type now...

Like others have said the class is not designed to make you super fast it's experience after the fact. It's like if someone teaches you the basic of skateboarding, to start doing tricks and other things like grinding rails takes extra practice and more lessons in some cases.
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Monopoman posted...

I took it for high school but games like MuDs and MMO's later down the line like EQ, Star Wars Galaxies, WoW made me much faster. Most people marvel at how fast I can type now...

Like others have said the class is not designed to make you super fast it's experience after the fact. It's like if someone teaches you the basic of skateboarding, to start doing tricks and other things like grinding rails takes extra practice and more lessons in some cases.

My classes tried to teach speed. We where tested on it anyways and even graded on regular assignments based on how quick we got them done.

They also taught how to type professional style emails or papers too. Think they we're gearing students for a future where computers and typing where a major part of a lot of jobs. Early to mid 2000s for a time era reference
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