How did you learn how to type?

TequilaMockingBird

Are kids still taught this in school? Or do you just do the two finger job these days?

I'm curious, as I rarely see anyone type "correctly" anymore. When I was at school your typing speed (wpm) was very important, is it still?

RedXIV

I was typing before i was writing. My dad was a massive nerd and he used to go through the alphabet with me on the keyboard.

They tried teaching us typing in school but wasn't a huge success.

Picked up speed from trying to chat up 10 people at once while in chat rooms as a frustrated teenager

Internet addiction.

Dudess

20-hour typing course in an office training centre. Two five-hour sessions there to learn the basics, the remaining 10 hours spread out as long as I wanted. Test at the end.
It got me to over 80 words per minute - you only need the basics, the rest is up to you. If you've access to a keyboard you can put in the practice and train yourself for free once you've paid enough to learn the basics. No need for expensive secretarial courses

barnacle

Pitman typing exams... 145 wpm. 1st class.

brianthebard

Mavis beacon ftw!I taught myself with this before going to uni.I can type faster than a lot of the computer nerds could,so it works.

Dudess

145? Christ I feel inadequate!

Kimbot

Thought myself and it worked out well. Because I have spent most my life around computers I have sped up alot.

Blush_01

I've never been taught how to type and my WPM is pathetic. Any inexpensive tips on how to improve it?

TequilaMockingBird

145? Respect!

80 at a push here. I am touch typing though.




/brushes imaginary fluff from shoulder...

inflight

My dad went back to college when I was 11 and could only use a typewriter.. So I typed his essays and theses and got Mavis Beacon

Holsten

I use my computer alot... self taught I guess?

Fanny Cradock

It sounds archaic, but in my school they used to put a wooden box over the keyboard with holes for your hands. Any mistakes... that meant a paddlin.

The system had a fatal flaw though: you could still see the keys.

KnifeWRENCH

I just type using my two index fingers. I've no idea how many wpm I can type. I don't particularly care tbh!

geminilady

i learnt it for the junior cert comes in very handy at work and with uni!

david_the_great

sueme wrote: »

Are kids still taught this in school? Or do you just do the two finger job these days?

I'm curious, as I rarely see anyone type "correctly" anymore. When I was at school your typing speed (wpm) was very important, is it still?

we never learnt this in school

BubbleWrap85

ECDL in TY. Teacher used to ask the WPM we'd get in the little tests and used to think I was lying because I was quite good. Can do about 80 wpm. Once got 96!

Plus as someone mentioned previously, the whole internet addiction thing helps with typing fluency!!!!

omb0wyn5ehpij9

BubbleWrap85 wrote: »

ECDL in TY.

Ditto!

NotMe

I did a typing class in transition year where we used these old typewriters to learn on. We had to type out a few paragraphs with each new letter and if you made more than 3 mistakes you had to start over. We only had one class a week though and we didn't actually finish learning the whole alphabet or numbers but it gave me a good start.

When I got a computer at home it had Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing with it and I brushed up my skills with that followed by many years of internets.

The Walsho

Years of MSN has me typing fairly quickly now.

andrewie

Had computers once a week only in first year which was unhelpful!

Like others, years of chatting online is how I learned.

Wertz

We were too poor to have anything other than a typewriter in my house when I was growing up, and that didn't appeal to me at all. Never so much as looked at a computer in school (I did art instead), then had the bright idea of wanting to study Comp Sci in college (lasted about 2 months lol)...anyways when I eventually got enough money together to get a PC and the Net, I taught myself how to type...I still look at the keyboard for about 90% of the time I'm typing, although I can look up at the screen and touch type, but it usually goes horribly wrong...I have no idea what my WPM is...it's probably very variable...I find I can type much faster when I'm in a hurry to put my thoughts into black and white before I loose my train of thought, or when I'm typing anything long. I do use both hands and nearly all the fingers on each but my method would be far from conventional.
I'd like tot hink that kids are taught how to type in school now, but since it seems most of them can't even spell, I doubt it does them much good...

xOxSinéadxOx

i don't know how to type properly but i can type faster than most people. it's just from typing the whole time you get quick

Ruu_Old

Mavis Beacon! Nah not really, we used to have a type writer when I was younger and I used to bash about on the keys. We had typing classes in secondary school (1st year), I think the dosser class got to do it though and I wasn't in it. Primary schools normally have some portion of time dedicated to computers and typing, even the smallest of schools (my Mam teaches in a tiny rural school).

tobiesheba

On a pre-computer 1200 that Santa Claus bought one year when I was 'bout 9!

Adam

wat r u al tlkin bout i cn do lik 300 wrds a min im obv way bttr den al of u!! :P

Tha Gopher

Your schools taught you how to type?

Ours never did. I just got used to it.

Thought keyboards were the weirdest contraption ever and that it was sh1te that it wasnt in alphabetic order.
Can you buy an ordered keyboard?

Pigwidgeon

did ecdl in TY but i don't think it really helped me.
years of msning and chatting and stuff i suppose has helped...
how do you find out your WPM?

monkeyfudge

My childhood computer was a Commodore Vic-20 without a tape deck.

If I wanted to play any games on it I had to copy pages and pages of code out of a magazine. It certainly got me familiar with the QWERTY keyboard layout at a young age. I studied journalism in college and there were classes in touch typing as part of the course so I picked up the rest there quickly enough.

Certainly had no training in school though.

Frisbee

A large man called Ernst with a whip who used to stand near our computer.....

MSN would be my main contributor id say..

Overheal

RedXIV wrote: »

I was typing before i was writing. My dad was a massive nerd and he used to go through the alphabet with me on the keyboard.

They tried teaching us typing in school but wasn't a huge success.

Picked up speed from trying to chat up 10 people at once while in chat rooms as a frustrated teenager

Thats true; I was navigating through DOS before I could legibly spell my own name.

frustrated teenagerism ftw, but I learned in school. down in florida every class i was in had 5 IBM machines whith childrens typing software in it - stuff like type this word to win the game etc. In my spare time I even did some really awful ascii art. that happened through 4th and 5th grade.

47 WPM nowadays, I still dont type they way they teach you to

geminilady

Tha Gopher wrote: »

Your schools taught you how to type?

Ours never did. I just got used to it.

Thought keyboards were the weirdest contraption ever and that it was sh1te that it wasnt in alphabetic order.
Can you buy an ordered keyboard?

yep we learnt it also how to do tabs they were the worse! tricky stuff they were!

yeah that would be a good idea!

PurpleBerry

Diploma course

Delirium

Learnt how to type during TY all those years ago. Think the program
was called typing tutor. Can type pretty much by touch now.

genegenie

Often dabbled with Pitman Typing Tutor on the good ol Commodore 64 from when I was 7ish (still have that somewhere actually, must crack it out!). Then started teaching myself touch typing in earnest when I was around 12/13 with the help of Mavis Beacon. I was an odd kid :rolleyes:

Pride Fighter

I was never taught how to type in school. We just concentrated on Literacy and numbers.

Skittles!

I learned to type from using chatrooms and instant messengers as a teenager. I never learned in school. I was too smart to get into the typing class. The teachers in my secondary only let the really stupid kids take the typing class to keep them out of the more serious classes like French, Biology, Accounting, etc.

o1s1n

ICQ.

My fastest was 99wpm. Just couldnt get that extra 1 no matter how hard I tried

R0ot

Always had a computer in the house learned to type out of constant use of the computer, simple as. :pac:

stevecrow74

Years spent surfing the net.

the thing I hate is that some people type as if they are using their phone. its a computer and its on the internet, you don't get charged for the amount of letters you use :rolleyes:

adsgirl

Rapped on the knuckles with a sally rod.

Necronomicon

My sister was a receptionist, and she sat me down in front of a typewriter for about a month until I could touch-type. She said I'd thank her one day for it, man how right she was. I was lucky, because when I got into secondary school there didn't seem to be a whole lot of importance placed on learning, it was criminal really.

Naikon

Overheal wrote: »

47 WPM nowadays, I still dont type they way they teach you to

Same here bro:D
I type reasonably fast, it's just a typist will always beat me.
Bet most can't write code though:p
I type faster when not copying, because looking at a page/source
has me shifting eyes back and forth.

Never learnt anything about typing/computing in school, thought myself everything from the beginning
with no classes till I hit College. Computing is disgraceful in school education,
my old school principal happily exclaiming it as a "waste"

Why programming/Computing classes aren't introduced in school is criminal tbh.

genericgoon

Excessive amounts of typing done for school projects(LCVP would be a big one) on the computer. Besides that many years on the internet has helped considerably, especially from my days of typing in the dark late at night.

bealbocht

my mum was a typing teacher, so there were typewriters at home, but only learned the home keys, as my hands, especially my 'ikkle fingers were too small to press the "A" key
but when I got a computer, downloaded a small free program, and did all the boring exercises, and it had this game, where you had to type the sentance, while being chased by a "fish", not very exciting but , did the trick, put a good few hours into it too. Have loads of bad habits, the most recent one being, typing "if" instead of it" . (or just did it there ti , instead of it)
can (cna , another one) do 50 wpm at a push, but 35 ish suits me fine.

ImDave

Started using computers when I was 11/12, and havent stopped since. Best speed about 85 wpm.

Big_Mac

Work.

When you type as much as I do on a daily basis you don't be long learning. Have moved on way past the two finger jobs anymore

Naos

Always had a computer in my house as a kid.

However, making webpages with Notepad is what created the legend of a typer I am today

Dudess

barnacle wrote: »

Pitman typing exams... 145 wpm. 1st class.

Back to this: is that really possible?

Now I emphasise I've no doubt you're a very fast typist but 145 wpm is about 60 words more per minute than I can type and I can't imagine myself getting significantly faster. Faster sure, but 60wpm more? It just seems like sparks would come out of the keyboard or something... Forgive me, I'm not being cynical, but it just seems impossible!

Mint Sauce

spend quite a lot of my working day on a computer, although my technic is nothing like the way my business studies teacher tried to teach us at school, on a type writer 13/14 yrs ago, think its the only time i've ever used one in my life

plus using a computer to type up numerious 2 to 3k word asignments at college was definetly a help

did no favours to help my spelling though

eamoss

Wow I have a few reasons
Mavis Beacon.
TY.
Private lessons on eclectic typewriters with 6 other fellow 12/13 years olds down in a Scumbag estate.
MSN/Chat rooms.
Now 20 and have been messing round with computers since I was about 5.

Never look at the keyboard any more, have a speed of 60WPM faster then most of my mates but I was shocked to find some of the lads doing my course (Computer Science) type with two fingers :eek: dont slag them too much as I want to rob their code

Oh yea for some odd reason I never use the right hand 'Shift' button.