To start things off. . .how many of you learned to type on a machine like this?

With a textbook, students are restricted as to the “new content” available in new key introduction. Once the drill lines have been typed, the same lines are repeated.

With technology, students are “fed” new drill lines every time they begin a new-key activity:

Drill #1

Drill #2

Drill #3

DEMO

On the typewriter, our instructor told us to “Turn to page 34 and type Lines 17-27 for the next 15 minutes.”

We all typed those lines, and that was good because we were typing. But it was not that good because what we were typing may not have been what we needed to type to best improve our typing skills.

SKB TEXT

To identify the appropriate drill materials, you first have to find out where the students’ weaknesses are. . .give them a Pretest.

Then assign drills based on the errors they made in the Pretest. . .and let technology do the work for you.

What kinds of errors do students make???

Here is a collection of the different kinds of errors students make when typing:

Once determining the kinds of errors your students are making, prescribe the appropriate drills:

MAP DEMO

Proofreading for typographical errors students make is a thankless task. . .and it consumes most of the time we spend evaluating student work. Technology eliminates the need to proofread for typographical errors.

Technology has discovered three errors in this para-graph: A red error indicates a misspelling. A green error indicates a missing word. A blue error indicates an extra word.

12” DEMO

In typewriting, students could type a document easily enough; but if their finished product contained either a typographical or formatting error, they likely had to retype that document.

With technology, students can create a document, and then make as many changes as they want to that document, without having to re-key it.

The first step is to create the document.

Once the document has been created, any errors must be corrected through an edit process.

There are three errors to be corrected in the paragraph below: a spelling error, a missing word, and an extra word.

A Proofreading Viewer is used to assist students in making corrections to their document:

Read-onlyCopy

EditingCopy

Once the errors have been corrected, the results are stored in a student’s Portfolio, along with all attempts for that job:

31 DEMO

Communicating with students is a fairly uncomplicated task if you are working with them in a classroom. But what if they are doing their work at home or at a Website and you don’t have face-to-face contact? E-mailing them is one solution, but your communications should be tied directly with the document on which you are commenting rather than as a separate message in an e-mail.

Several options for communicating with your students can easily occur in a keyboarding class, if you have the right technology:

■ Create a Class Announcement—

A Class Announcement is sent to the entire class.

■ Create a General Comment—

A General Comment is used to make an overall comment to one particular student.

■ Create a Digital Annotation—

A digital annotation is attached directly to the docu-ment where the error occurred. When the student slides his/her pointer over the annotation symbol, the teacher’s comment is displayed on the screen.

DEMO

A keyboarding class can require more work to be evaluated than any other business-related class! Agreed?

In keyboarding, we evaluate technique, timed writings, daily work, production tests, and other activities. All of this work has to be recorded in a gradebook. Technology can evaluate all that work for you, and then assign appropriate grades for the students.

The first step in creating a Custom Gradebook for keyboarding is to decide on the categories of work to be assigned grades, such as the following:

The second step is to determine how much of the grade for each category is going to be assigned to keystroking (what you type) and to formatting (how it appears on the page).

Then you have to decidewhat grading scale you are going to use:

And finally, you assign every activity in the textbook to one of your designated categories, determine due dates, and errors allowed for a grade.

DEMO

Students can develop their keyboarding skills in a classroom. . .or they can do so in an Online Learning environment.

To take keyboarding online, students must first have a valid e-mail address: djohnson@charter.net

After their work has been completed, students simply click “Upload” in their software.

The student’s work is then uploaded to a Student Website. Following a successful upload, a screen appears to verify what work has been sent to the Website.

Both the student and the instructor then have access to the student’s Portfolio, and this access can be made from any Internet connection.

DEMO

■ When we introduce new keys.■ When we skillbuild for speed and accuracy.■ When we proofread.■ When we process documents.■ When we communicate.■ When we assess student performance.■ When we participate in online learning.