Message #61570

[colint]

To be honest it was something similar when I was at school.  The typewriters had the letters on the keys painted out (not Tipp-Ex (as it was black), but that idea) - although only the letters - we were allowed to look for punctuation marks etc, since they varied depending on which machine you were using (in case you didn't get your usual machine).

I'm sure you're familiar with the routine of copy-typing text across the page, no corrections, start a new line if you make a mistake, keep going until you have three without errors, then every fourth line would need to be verified by the teacher, who would hold paper over your hands as you typed the fourth line again.  If you couldn't do it, you needed to do those lines again!

I went to a secretarial college that was rather sinister - full of doting aunt types in their 50s! All very proper: no-one was allowed to wear jeans and girls were discouraged from wearing trousers: "If you MUST wear trousers, then they should be smart tailored ones, like Colin's"!!!  The girls were taught by one of the make-up houses (from the local department store) how to wear make-up for work AND how to sit like a lady - the other few boys and I spent that lesson in the nearby park!

Anyhow, at that college, a metronone was used and we had to keep up with it!  Over the year, the weight was slid further down the rod to increase its speed.  This apparently encouraged a regular pace (rather than working in fits and starts) and also built speed.

Another of their speed-building methods was to give us one of those alphabetic sentences (like the quick brown fox, but they had several) and we had to type it as many times as possible in five minutes.  Whilst we were doing this, the teacher would be encouraging us as if running a race!  "Come on!  Faster!  You can do it!  Hurry up!  The clock's against you - beat it!"

I did warn you it was rather sinister!

Nevertheless, I think "keyboarding" (as it's now called, to encourage more boys to take up the skill) should be compulsory at college - at least until a viable alternative to the keyboard arrives.  Throughout college, assignments are prefered word-processed and at university it's compulsory.  Why leave students to struggle?

However, one thing that baffles me beyond belief is that we still use a QWERTY keyboard.  This layout was designed to SLOW DOWN the typist and stop the bars jamming on manual/electric machines.  As Carol Vorderman once put it "the computer keyboard is as user-friendly as barbed-wire underpants!"  Why on earth the layout isn't changed for one that encourages speed I really can't imagine.  Those of us already trained on QWERTY keyboards could continue using them, but the newly-trained typists could use the new layout.