Keyboarding Lessons and Games
Ready to trust your fingers? Start practicing your touch typing skills!
Just getting started? Younger students enjoy these key finder games to help familiarize themselves with the keyboard.
Feeling confident enough to compete? Feel free to join us on a racetrack, but watch out for Rosalina ;)
Still not satisfied? These typing games are sure to get your fingers moving, but be sure to stay away from advertisements.
All About the Keyboard
Did you know? The keyboard is full of helpful keys and shortcuts! Make sure you know these common ones, then take a quiz!
Ctrl-a, Ctrl-s, Ctrl-z, Ctrl-x, Ctrl-c, Ctrl-v, Ctrl-f, Ctrl-p, Ctrl-minus, Ctrl-plus, Tab, Enter, Shift, Delete, Backspace
Did you know? The keyboard is full of helpful keys and shortcuts! Make sure you know these common ones, then take a quiz!
Ctrl-a, Ctrl-s, Ctrl-z, Ctrl-x, Ctrl-c, Ctrl-v, Ctrl-f, Ctrl-p, Ctrl-minus, Ctrl-plus, Tab, Enter, Shift, Delete, Backspace
What to know more about the keyboard? You might find these links interesting.
Keyboarding Tree and Party
We are creating a wonderfully beautiful scatter plot of our typing accuracies and speeds! You may place your leaf at your test results as long as the test was...
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Any student with accuracy above 95% and speed above 40 WPM may use silver on his/her leaf and is invited to our keyboarding party on Thursday, April 28th at 12pm. Congratulations to the following:
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The Steps to Keyboarding
Safety: Safety always comes first. Being safe while keyboarding means using good ergonomic strategies. It doesn't matter how accurately or quickly you can type if you are hurting yourself in the process. Using poor posture can cause repetitive motion injuries that may affect you the rest of your life. Here are 5 key points to help you stay comfortable and safe while you practice your keyboarding.
- Never look at the keyboard: You have to learn from the onset to look at the screen and not the keyboard when you type. Adjust your workstation so your eyes alight with the top of the screen. This will keep your head straight, which complies with the staircase rule described below.
- Follow the staircase rule: The staircase position is the proper posture when working on a keyboard. Imagine your body looking like a staircase. Your back should be straight and your feet should be flat. In this position, there isn't any part of your body that is under extra stress.
- Keep wrists straight and elbows down: Never bend your wrists. Long periods of work in this position cause sharp pain in the wrist. You might need to adjust the height of your chair so your elbows are slightly above the desk line. If your chair is too high or too low, it makes it more difficult to keep your wrists straight. Also, remember to keep your elbows relaxed at your side.
- Use proper lighting: Poor lighting can cause headaches or even dizziness because it requires our eyes to strain. Therefore, it is recommended that you work with the lights on. Never strain your eyes to see. Blink your eyes or look straight ahead for a while if you feel pain in your eyes or if it is difficult to focus. You’ll also want to follow the 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes, take 20 seconds to look away from your screen at something 20 feet away from you.
- Take breaks and stretch: It is recommended that you take breaks from time to time. These breaks will allow you to maintain a constant level of productivity. Always stretch before and after any keyboarding activities.
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Strategy: Using correct finger placement is the key to typing without having to look at your keyboard. Looking down at your keyboard will cause neck injury, slow you down, and make you look like an amateur. Do yourself a service and always practice the correct way.
- Trust your fingers: You have to trust that the muscles in your fingers will learn where the keys are if you consistently practice the correct way.
- Find tactile keys: There are two keys on your keyboard that have raised bumps on them. The f and j keys are where you place your index fingers. They help you find your home row keys without having to ever look down at your keyboard. You can set your other fingers on the keys directly adjacent.
- Return to home row keys: Keep your fingers on the home row (asdf and jkl;) at all times unless it is a finger that is stretching to press a key. Your typing program will tell you which finger to use for each key. If you lose your way, find your tactile keys again.
Accuracy: Typing accurately is an extremely valuable skill. Remember that the slow and steady always win the race, and the sloppy always finish last.
- Focus on Accuracy: It's more important that you are accurate and using the proper technique than it is that you type quickly.
- Accuracy Affects Speed: Not only do mistakes slow you down, but accuracy has a greater affect on your test grade as well..
Speed: Being able to type quickly and accurately frees your mind to focus on more important matters like the context of which you are typing. Speed should only be attempted when ergonomics, finger placement, and accuracy are mastered.
- Don't be sloppy: Speed is only valuable if it is done properly and accurately.
- Goal of 40 WPM: When you graduate from 8th grade, ideally you will be able to type at least 40 WPM while maintaining a 95% accuracy rate. Try to increase your speed at least 5 WPM per year while maintaining your accuracy to obtain this goal.
Grading Rubric
Safety and Strategy: The end of class is spent keyboarding with covers. Students will be assessed on their ergonomic display and touch typing technique.
Speed and Accuracy: All tests will be taken with keyboards covered and will be graded on speed and accuracy. A test is taken at the beginning of the quarter and is used for goal setting. A second test is taken near the end of the quarter and will replace the first test grade. Grades are calculated by subtracting twice the difference between your accuracy goal (usually 95%) and your actual accuracy and half the difference between your speed goal (based on your diagnostic test and grade level) and your actual speed from 100.
YourGrade=100-2(95-YourAccuracy)-0.5(SpeedGoal-YourSpeed).
- Eyes forward: Eyes remain on screen; neck remains straight; tactile keys used to find finger placement.
- Back straight: Straight line from shoulder to hip; weight distributed evenly on chair; hips meet at right angle.
- Wrists straight: Straight line from pinky joint to elbow; finger length gap between edge of keyboard and edge of desk; wrist not wresting on desk.
- Elbows down: Chair at appropriate height; elbows within 2 inches of body.
Speed and Accuracy: All tests will be taken with keyboards covered and will be graded on speed and accuracy. A test is taken at the beginning of the quarter and is used for goal setting. A second test is taken near the end of the quarter and will replace the first test grade. Grades are calculated by subtracting twice the difference between your accuracy goal (usually 95%) and your actual accuracy and half the difference between your speed goal (based on your diagnostic test and grade level) and your actual speed from 100.
YourGrade=100-2(95-YourAccuracy)-0.5(SpeedGoal-YourSpeed).