Learning to touch type.

May 9, 2005 11:51 AM

I do not currently touch type but would like learn this skill. In addition to being able to practice at home I will likely have time to practice at work too.

My boss is fine with me learning this skill on the clock as long as it's not too apparent to just anyone what I am doing. That being said, I might be able to install some sort of typing tutor on my work PC. Obviously, this cuts out any apps that appear too much like games. With or without programs what are your suggestions? How did you learn to touch type? Any other tips for someone a bit fed up with hunt-and-peck?

posted by horseblind to Education (21 answers total)

Best answer: I just typed like crazy until I got good at it. I had the advantage of being 14 and discovering IRC, of course -- the social necessity of being able to type quickly without looking provided all the motivation I needed. Now it's such a fundamental skill that I don't even think about it.

Specific tools aside, it just takes time and some discipline and the belief that you will get past that goddam hump and stop looking down. Make yourself do it every day, whenever you can, and have some patience.
posted by cortex at 12:05 PM on May 9, 2005

Switch the Dvorak keyboard layout. That will make looking at your keyboard useless. Post a small chart of the Dvorak keyboard layout on your monitor bezel so you can figure out where a key is if you need to without actually looking at the keyboard.

If you learn Dvorak, you will be able to type "shithead" without taking your fingers off the home row -- a valuable feature on Internet discussion forums.
posted by kindall at 12:19 PM on May 9, 2005 [1 favorite]

This is pretty much the defacto standard. There are several online applets that can help, however.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:21 PM on May 9, 2005

After going the Mavis Beacon route (who, by the way, is a ficticious person, much like Betty Crocker) to learn where the keys are, the most effective (and most fun) practice I did was doing the Java-based crosswords found at upuzzles.com and on various newspaper sites across the country. Doesn't address the no-game appearance you're looking for, but that's how I did it.
posted by DandyRandy at 12:24 PM on May 9, 2005

And more typing tutor apps are available here: for Windows; for Mac.
posted by naomi at 12:25 PM on May 9, 2005

Mavis Beacon taught me to touchtype, quite painlessly & quite effectively.

I've often thought of starting over, to get Dvorak proficiency, but as I often use other people's keyboards it would probably just be a distraction.
posted by anadem at 12:27 PM on May 9, 2005

I didn't know how to touch type until I started chatting online as well. I've never taken a class or opened something like Mavis Beacon. My parents, who bought their first personal computer in about 1982, still hunt and peck. Based on that limited experience, I think learning how to touch type is a motivation thing--any software or method will work, provided that you really need or want to learn.
posted by xyzzy at 12:29 PM on May 9, 2005

If you've been hunting and pecking for a few years, you might be halfway there. I found one day that if I put my hands in the right position, I could touch type. A little practice with a typing tutor app and forcing myself to keep my eyes off the keyboard and my speed increased rapidly.

In all the typing tutor software I've seen, the game mode was optional, so you should be fine in that regard.
posted by teg at 12:31 PM on May 9, 2005

Best answer: Another vote for Mavis Beacon. I used it on my lunch break at work about 12 years ago, and after a couple of weeks I was fairly proficient. (I can now type at about 80wpm when I'm really trying.)

A word of warning, though: once you've started to learn, you need to keep on touch typing and not revert to 'hunt and peck'. Which means that for the first few days it'll be very frustrating, with a much slower speed and more mistakes than you're used to. Stick with it, though, and it shouldn't be long before you're typing much faster than you were before.
posted by littleme at 12:35 PM on May 9, 2005

I agree with everyone above that says that it's necessity driven. I took typing in HS and all but flunked (man how embarrassing!). But once I started to move about online and in chat rooms, furoms and on group blogs, my typing skills skyrocketed.

I still ocassionally have to reorient myself, but only rarely. It really helps that I work in and around the Internet though.
posted by FlamingBore at 12:53 PM on May 9, 2005

I took "keyboarding" class in high school, complete with the teacher who would rap on the back of your chair if you weren't sitting up straight.

It would be most efficient for you to take a simliar route. You need to learn the basics, and after that it's practice, practice, practice. My father learned to type using Mavis Beacon, and I believe Yahoo has a game called "Typer Shark" or something like that. Not sure how "gamey" it looks though, so might not be suitable for your workplace.

Once you have learned the basics, print out some letters, proposals, procedures -- anything containing large blocks of text. Open a blank Word or text document and start typing exactly what you see, without looking down at your hands (it'll take awhile to get used to that).
posted by suchatreat at 1:03 PM on May 9, 2005

I know how a lot have bragged that they learned to type on their own as they chatted on the net, but I bet you they don't realize that they aren't all the way there yet. Most probably still look at numbers. Others probably don't realize how often they hit the backspace. I believe the minimum standard when I was in school was 30 words/minute (5 keystrokes == 1 word) with no more than two mistakes a minute. Sounds easy, but it takes a lot of practice, and that's transcribing it from a book and onto a page, not pulling it out of your head, which is so much easier.

If you're self taught, I still suggest you spend an hour or two once a year doing a typing test to find where your weak points are and set yourself challenges for the new year.
posted by furtive at 1:25 PM on May 9, 2005

I'm a big fan of revolutionary, suppressed technologies that are kept from us by the evil machinations of The Man. That said, a careful reading of the Dvorak scholarship would seem to reveal that the advantages aren't all that great.

/happy to be wrong on this
//not trolling.
posted by craniac at 1:34 PM on May 9, 2005

Big tip: get used to resting your hands at the home row when you're not actively typing. When they're at rest, make sure your index fingers are resting on the F and J keys. The little nubs on them are there for a reason, of course!
posted by zsazsa at 1:35 PM on May 9, 2005

If you think that Mavis Beacon would be better with more zombies, you can also get a copy of Typing of the Dead. That may not work so well at the office, of course. Unless you've got one with a professionally unusual atmosphere.

The Dvorak-vs-QWERTY thing isn't really a slamdunk in favor of one side or the other, apparently. Might as well stick with the standard, or be bilingual (bidigital?) with it.
posted by Drastic at 1:36 PM on May 9, 2005

a careful reading of the Dvorak scholarship would seem to reveal that the advantages aren't all that great

Qwerty started hurting my hands after about 15 years. I switched to Dvorak and the pain went away.
posted by kindall at 2:01 PM on May 9, 2005

I learned in highschool (a million years ago), but Mavis Beacon made me much faster and more accurate--another vote for her : >
posted by amberglow at 2:09 PM on May 9, 2005

I have read an interesting article in the paper a couple of days ago. Accelerated Teaching Solutions has developed an associative touch typing course that promises mastery after 4 hours of training!

Apparently one has to learn to associate various cute pictures with each letter instead of drilling one’s muscles for countless hours. The reporter was quite impressed, so this seems to be worth checking out if you're living in the Benelux.
posted by koenie at 2:14 PM on May 9, 2005

I learned to touch type in elementary school when my teacher put a swatch of fabric over my hands while I typed. Took a few days, but it worked a charm.
posted by sugarfish at 3:54 PM on May 9, 2005

I liked what sugarfish said...

But, I'm going with...

Online tutorials + drills.

Constant practice. Really. Since you can do it at work, how about ten minutes per hour. By the end of the day, you'll have spent over an hour...and it won't be all at once (and you'll adpat faster).

End of the week? You'll spent nearly a full working day, practicing typing.

Get some IM buddies too - nothing like trying to communicate quickly to speed up your typing.
posted by filmgeek at 4:29 PM on May 9, 2005

just type. and type. and type. and type. i never ever look at the keys.
posted by playtragic at 12:27 PM on May 11, 2005