Touch Type Refresher
The most useful class I ever took in school was keyboarding. I took it my junior year of high school.
Around that same time, my family got our first internet connection. It was 1996, so we had the coolest of service providers at the time - America Online. Yes, someday I'll be able to tell my children that I remember when AOL was the ISP of savvy surfers.
My goal in class was always accuracy first. At home, my goal was keeping up with a chat room plus a dozen IM windows. I attribute these dual typing goals to my comfort at the keyboard. The mere fact that I can type as fast as I compose is certainly an accomplishment.
All these years later, my typing is not entirely 'touch type.' I consider it a modified touch type that has me looking at the keyboard more the more tired I am. I'm on a computer all day at work, then come home to blog and network so my sore fingers and brain sometime need some visual help.
When I came across the 10-Fast-Fingers Speedtest, I was inspired to see if I still had any real touch type skill remaining. Not only do I allow my eyes to slip down to the keyboard, I seldom type something that I am reading like you do in keyboarding classes.
As for my score (drum roll please), I typed around 163 characters in a minute with reasonable accuracy of 21 correct words to 1 incorrect. It certainly is poor compared to the 65 or 70 words per minutes I scored back in keyboarding. On the other hand, that score is with honest no-look typing which I haven't practiced in nearly a decade.
For the beginning typist, 10-Fast-Fingers offers free online touch type lessons. We all know I love free. I'll be recommending this program to my newbie friends for years to come. Certainly, it is easier to enjoy a computer when one can input information in a timely manner. Can you imagine hunt and pecking a blog?
Even a long time computer user can benefit from a refresher course. I'll be practicing now that a realize how rusty I've gotten over the years. Maybe I'll actually get back to the practice of touch typing rather slacker typing.
Ha.. I'm glad I am not the only one who learned her mad typing skills by keeping up with AOL chat and IMs! I remember AOL version 2.5.. I think that was the oldest one I ever had. Did you ever think they'd make it to 9?
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I'm sure plenty of people in our age group did exactly the same thing. Kids coming these days might never be as fast on the keys because they are using social networking sites where speed is not as important.
I'm sad to report that AOL is still cranking out bad dial up service. In my job, I support broadband wireless cards and often run into people who think they know all about computers but have had AOL since 1995. I'll have to post the rant I blogged back when I was blogging on MySpace (no one read 'em) about those crazy people.
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