When/where did you learn to touch-type?

edited 2016-12-28 19:45:31 in General
I was thinking about this after noticing that my psychiatrist is a hunt-and-peck typist.

I learned to touch-type when I was 11. My middle school had a "keyboarding" class for sixth graders and somehow I convinced myself it was fun because we got to use computers.
Tagged:

Comments

  • image Wee yea erra chs hymmnos mea.
    It's just muscle memory for me, so nowhere, nowhen in particular.
  • muscle memory

    though weirdly enough, if i can't see my keyboard, my brain freaks out and is like YOU DONT KNOW HOW TO TYPE JACKASS
  • edited 2016-12-28 19:48:41

    it's like how i cant answer a simple addition question without having to mentally count it out even if i immediately know the answer
  • I learned to type with this little periodic-table-naming game I had as a kid, but then consequently learned to type a lot faster thanks to high school, both a computer programming class and a bunch of essay-writing.
  • They tried to teach us to type in elementary school but I basically ignored it and don't remember how any of it worked.

    Later on I just kind of started doing it by accident. I am still probably doing it "wrong" but I type faster than most people I know so whatev.
  • I never bothered.  I just learned to hunt-and-peck faster.  The only thing I can't do as quickly as most touch-typists is copying text.
  • I also remember my mom making me type out the alphabet as practice.

    abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
  • edited 2016-12-28 20:00:51
    Honestly now that I think about it I don't really know the actual definition of "touch typing" or whether what I do qualifies. I mean, I type by touch in the sense that I don't need to look at the keyboard but at least some people seem to use it to mean more than that. I use all of my fingers, though probably not in the maximally efficient way, and I don't "rest my hands on home row" but I do kind of rest them vaguely in the middle and avoid moving them too much?

    I am of course now paying way more attention to what my hands do as I write this than I do normally. However I am typing on a tablet keyboard which is smaller and somewhat differently laid out than a normal PC keyboard so it's not 100% representative.
  • Technically I know how to touch-type through having used Type-to-Learn in elementary school and taking a sixth grade keyboarding class (I can't remember the exact app, but it wasn't Mavis Beacon), but these days my method of typing is like a weird combination of hunt-and-peck and touch-typing. 

    I have the traditional QWERTY layout memorized and I do kind of keep two hands on the palmrests at once, but I don't bother with the left-pointer-on-F-right-pointer-on-J bullshit because I find that it really doesn't improve my typing speed in any way? Ah well.

    Loved that keyboarding class tho. I'd always get done really quick and then dig through GameSloth to find something to occupy my brain. I ended up finding the Shift series of flash platformers that way, and there was another game on there I really liked called Pendulumeca. Good times.
  • I do rest my hands on the home row just because I'm used having my index fingers feeling the two little plastic tabs (or whatever similar thing the keyboard has).  It's basically a way of knowing my place on the keyboard.

    This is a problem with touchscreen keyboards as it's basically like I _have_ to look at the keyboard.  To some extent, after getting a bit more used to it, it's like playing the violin -- where there are no frets so you just have to rely on muscle memory and sight to hit points correctly, rather than being subtly guided by feeling things in the right places.

    Also I do type far more quickly than I use the mouse.  Not that the latter is slow because I've kinda had to learn to adapt to doing things quickly on the computer in general, but it's just that using the mouse is still a significant speed drop compared to doing things on keyboard, especially because I can make inputs on keyboard in very rapid successsion.
  • edited 2016-12-28 20:28:47
    kill living beings
    class required in middle school. thankfully.
  • My middle school had a "keyboarding" class for sixth graders and somehow I convinced myself it was fun because we got to use computers.

  • kill living beings
    my class was actually fun, because while mavis beacon or whatever is boring, we got to play winbolo when we were done
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    I played a game where a spooky ghost haunts a house with the power of typing
  • my class was actually fun, because while mavis beacon or whatever is boring, we got to play winbolo when we were done

    my computer programming class was how i discovered Jigsaw Puzzle, Snood, Bolo, and SimpleText.
  • I have cut a caper with the dancing mad god
    I don't think I got good at typing until I started being on irc all the time. Nothing like some good ol' fashioned chatting/gossiping to hone your typing skills, really. 
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    I learned to type by writing "novels" on a typewriter when I was about 8 or 9.

    Being an ancient person, when I was a kid nobody was on the internet or used text messaging or anything like that. So other kids at school would be amazed at my typing speed, something I don't think would happen today.
  • In elementary school we had dedicated weekly time using Mavis Beacon, so that's where I learned. Approx age 8?
  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    You know what's interesting? I was never formally taught 10-key, but I can use the numpad to enter numbers without looking at it. I don't know where I picked that up; it just kinda happened.
  • For once, or maybe twice, I was in my prime.
    I had a computer class in middle school where they taught us touch-typing. It wasn't Mavis Beacon or anything like that; they had a lesson plan based on just typing stuff in MS Word.
  • Splat Charger Specialist
    Just practice, I guess, but I can't always type things out in the dark. So I guess my technique's not perfect.
  • When I was a kid we had a Mavis Beacon CD around (and judging from this thread apparently it's widely known). Though I guess what really cemented it was IRC.

    Sometimes I slow down so as to hide my power level.
  • Mom got me and my sister a Mavis Beacon, and since it had games included in it, and using it was technically considered 'educational time', I spent a lot of time on it. I distinctly remember a game where you had to build a live-action animal by typing, and you could mix together different parts to get a cool looking monstrosity. So yeah, I was rocking a nice 35 WPM before I got to middle school.

    I was homeschooled until I was 10, so i have a lot of experience with edutainment games. Remember Cluefinders? Man, that was a good series
Sign In or Register to comment.