I am going to try and sneak this post past my wife. She gets upset every time I have something to say about keyboarding. She is not against keyboarding. Her position is pragmatic. She works in schools and nearly all schools have limited technology resources. She feels keyboarding instruction and related drills simply eat up too much of the time available for the instructional use of technology. Without getting into all of the related issues, I will just summarize her observation as keyboarding time ends up being subtracted from the time technology might be used in other ways.
This “issue” and a more general discussion of keyboarding instruction is discussed in a technology article provided by Education World. To me, some of the relevant questions include – How bad are the keyboarding skills of students who have received less than optimal instruction and what are the consequences of such differences? Are we wasting time teaching a motor skill that may soon be unnecessary (note Tablet PCs, interest in voice control)?
