Ian Jukes in his presentation yesterday, talked about the need for students to be able to keyboard to the point of transparency. (This video features this idea) He also talks about using a word processor as the format. He also talked about this in terms of the ability to write.
Something is missing.
This story (via Lorne Henklemen) suggests texting might be something we should be teaching. But I’m not sure we even need to teach this. The key idea here is about communication: not writing exclusively, not keyboarding, not even texting. Warlick and Fyer are among the many who talk about storytelling and information and avoid focusing on the tools or even the means. It’s interesting to me that we continue to dredge up old and tired issues that focus on format and tools rather than the content and communication and sharing of ideas.
[tags]ianjukes,textmessaging,fryer, warlick[/tags]
Image: Ilsa’s first text message
http://flickr.com/photos/supergolden/139216745/
The topic of keyboarding, as you quite rightly suggest is an “old and tired issue’. I’m working as a learning technology coordinator in the Catholic Schools the Diocese of Parramatta (in Sydney, Australia) for what’s now my fourth year, and this has been a debate that keeps popping up with my colleague coordinators in schools across our Diocese from time to time.
I remember being drilled through typing tutors when I was at school “computer lessons”, but that was because computers were a new thing to the school back in the 1980’s, and people were still getting their head around what to do with the things. There was also a perception that a certain level of mastery of the tool was needed in order to achieve anything with it – probably quite resonable at the time given very few of us children actually had a computer at home.
It seems ironic to me that Ian Jukes would prioritise keyboarding skills on one hand, then (as we see in the video) suggest that we need to move beyond using new tools to do old things. In many ways I see teaching keyboarding as doing an old thing on a new tool. It may be a different story I suppose if the typing is so slow and clunky that it actually hinders the process of using the computer.
Our teacher librarian has been teaching classes recently and simply challenged the children to see how quickly they can type a sentence. For me it highlights three things. Firstly, all children need to develop a sense of what letter is where in order to be efficent users. Second, practice will make perfect. Thirdly, consistent computer use will provide perfectly sufficent practice.
As for doing old things and keyboarding, let’s not forget that the keyboard is inefficient regardless of how well someone can use it. Our QWERTY keyboard layout is a typewriter layout, deliberately arranged so that the more frequently used letters are typed by the left (thus, for most people, weaker) hand, slowing typists down. The end result was less frequent jamming of typewriter arms (is arms the correct term?) due to fast typing.
And let’s also not forget that any teenager can text a message faster than any 40-year-old who knows how many words per minute they can type!
My suggestion that we might want to consider teaching text messaging was done somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Frankly, I wouldn’t have much to offer my students in this area. On the other hand, my students would be able to teach me a great deal about text messaging.
Cell phones are, just like any other piece of technology, simply a tool. If it is something that can be incorporated in your classroom, great. If not, that OK too. I’m guessing that in a few short years, our current cell phone technology will look as primitive as a 4 function calculator looks today. We can only imagine what the next generation communication devices will look like, but we can be certain that the tools of the future will have greatly increased functionality and their use will be even more widespread than today.