touch, peck or thumb

I saw a junior high student thumb type an older eeePC 701 at a very fast pace. Wow! A lot of people hunt and peck to get the job done. I came up behind my dad one day when he was typing and covered his eyes. He kept right on typing! That's when I started to learn touch typing.

Do you Touch, Peck or Thumb?

[JesterEric]

Thumb typing a 701? Huh. Interesting.

I touch type. One of the smartest things I ever did was learn to touch type in high school. At my best I hit 45 words per minute (nothin', my wife types 90!) but grad school didn't require speed, it requires just being able to type and occasionally read at the same time.

Unfortunately, like practically everyone, I learned to type on the QWERTY configuration, and when I was typing a *lot* working on my dissertation, I started to develop carpal tunnel and tendonitis issues. They've eased, but they still flare up sometimes. While I was in grad school, I tried to learn the Dvorak keyboard format, but the necessity of getting the PhD done got in the way of my taking more time to learn it. I'm sorry I didn't and hope to do so someday (which means I should check if my EEE will let me convert the keyboard config to Dvorak).

[ThisIsNot]

I am a touch (normal) typist. Oh so long ago, when I was in the 6th grade, I learned to type on an Apple IIe. This was about 13 years ago but the school was just too cheap to upgrade to newer computers. Anyway, we had to carry around two floppy (these were the real 5.25" floppy discs that you see in museums now , makes me feel old) discs. One contained the program while another would keep track of our weekly scores. The program would basically split the screen into a lower and upper half. The upper half would display the sentence and the lower half would have a box for us to type in. The program was pretty advanced for the time. It would measure our speed and keep track of it for up to 4 years total. It would also check for any spelling errors.

The teacher was a real hard butt. His class was setup so that the average speed that you could type (for a single week) would be your class score at the end of the semester. This means that you had to learn to type 90 words per minute (the program would count off for spelling errors, each error would subtract 1 words per minute from your time) if you wanted an A-. Despite all my complaining, at the time, the class has proven itself over the years. I know engineers who don't know how to type. This will sit there and use their "hunt and peck" method. It will take them all weekend to type up a 10 word report while I can easily finish that in about 1.5 hours.

I can even use my typing method for touchscreens. I am extremely fast on my QWERTY key Motorolla cellphone and I am even faster on an iPhone/iPod touch. My friends are all amazed that I can type without looking at the actual keyboard.

I experienced an injury only once. It was during my senior year for my BS program in Civil Engineering. I was on my last semester and was taking a total of 18 credit hours. For those who don't know, this is complete suicide. I didn't want to come back for another semester so I just wanted to get it out of the way. Needless to say, my plate was pretty full. I was taking 6 classes and 5 of them had reports due at the end of the semester. Each report needed to be approximately 30 pages in length. That translates to about 18 pages of pure text, it is just stretched out due to proper formatting. 18 pages was a lot when you account for 5 classes, at least two revisions, and having to type up two of those reports again due to a faulty USB thumb drive. I typed all of the reports in a period of two weeks. My hands really hurt after the first week. I had to go to the doctor after the second week as my thumbs were aching.

My main downfall, when it comes to typing, is using a standard cellphone. I don't know how kids can type so fast on those things. I think that takes more skill that using a full QWERTY keyboard. These kids will sit down in front of a computer and barely hammer out 10 words a minute yet they can type upwards around 40-50 using their stupid cellphones.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by netbooking

I saw a junior high student thumb type an older eeePC 701 at a very fast pace. Wow! A lot of people hunt and peck to get the job done. I came up behind my dad one day when he was typing and covered his eyes. He kept right on typing! That's when I started to learn touch typing.

Do you Touch, Peck or Thumb?

Thumbs?

Craziness! For a 7 inch netbook, I still think it'd be tough to thumb type.

I never owned a 7 inch netbook before - but I almost bought one. Glad I waited for 10 inches though.

[drowe]

Just to one-up ThisIsNot ;-) I llearned to type in High School. I learned on a manual keyboard that had all the letters taken off the keys. This was way before there were computers. It was the best thing I could do as it has helped me greatly these last 40(!) years. I've got a 900A that is difficult to touch type on, but my wife's Aspire One is a lot easier. Like I've heard before, an extra inch makes all the difference!

David

[ThisIsNot]

Yes, an extra inch (or two) makes all the difference in the world as 10" netbooks often have keyboards that are 92% the size of a normal one. Go to the next size up (11.6") and you will get a full size keyboard.

[ericinboston]

I type...in the early 80s I would just use 2 fingers and was quite fast. In high school they offered a typing class (sounds dumb but it was SO WORTH the time!).

I believe my typing speed is about 130 words a min. I do not look at the keyboard...so you can pretty much blindfold me.

I think it's worth the $40 (or whatever) to get a typing tutor-ish software program...or if you can take a class in high school. I have no idea if such classes are available outside of school/college. My high school class was 1 hour a day, 2 days a week for 3 months if I remember correctly.

Funny...back in 1986 when I took the class we had electric typewriters (actually very cool back then...they were sweet compared to others)...after a few weeks of learning proper hand placement on the typewriter, I was typing so fast that when the teacher yelled STOP, my typewriter would keep going to literally about 15 seconds...he was amazed, too.



I have to tell ya that proper typing is extremely beneficial...one of those little-acquired skills these days.

-Eric

[drowe]

I think it should be mandatory in schools. Probably starting at the grade school level. Most of those kids have access to computers and they need to learn to type before the develop bad habits.

[ericinboston]

Originally Posted by drowe

I think it should be mandatory in schools. Probably starting at the grade school level. Most of those kids have access to computers and they need to learn to type before the develop bad habits.

Isn't grade school 4th grade and lower?

I would say 7th grade or 8th. 9th would be the latest I would mandate it.

I just don't think kids under 7th grade have the attention span or physical characteristics to truly learn it. But maybe I'm wrong.

[drowe]

Originally Posted by ericinboston

Isn't grade school 4th grade and lower?

I would say 7th grade or 8th. 9th would be the latest I would mandate it.

I just don't think kids under 7th grade have the attention span or physical characteristics to truly learn it. But maybe I'm wrong.

You may be right, the last time I saw a person in 4th grade was when I was in it