Children should be taught to type in primary school

General General

AnneElizabeth wrote: »

Why is everyone saying to learn Chinese? First of all it would be far too confusing for primary schoolers when they're still learning spellings, words and the alphabet in their own language and secondly if everyone speaks Chinese the other languages will die out. Let Irish die, but I like English

Sweet statement. & your argument preceding it doesn't hold water. However, that doesn't surprise me.

partyatmygaff wrote: »

We used to have computer classes every week from senior infants onwards in my primary school. The nearest thing we did to a typing class was a spelling program that happened to tell you your WPM.

IIRC my WPM progressed like this

6 years = 18-20WPM (Faster than my teacher despite not even having my own computer at home yet )
8 years = 25-28WPM
10 years = 32-35WPM
12 years = 40-42WPM
14 years = 50-60WPM
17 years = 90WPM (Measured two minutes ago )

I never took a single proper typing class. All it took was experience. For most, 30-40WPM is more than enough though.

My progress went like this:

first five years, went from 0 to 20 words a minute, then I got a net connection & started having dirty chatroom conversations with what I hope were women, went from 20 to 60 words a minute, stopped having dirty chatroom conversations with what I hope were/are women, went from 60 to 45 words per minute.

partyatmygaff

Saila wrote: »

mine did, so you have now :cool:

ECDL and that sort of rubbish or a proper computers class?

rebel10

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I've never heard of any secondary school holding computer classes (Barring 4th years). They should introduce an ICT subject for the Leaving Cert. I'd have taken it in a heartbeat.

Well i was in school 15 years ago, and i had them. I now teach in a secondary schools and computers is given to every student for a single period p/w, and in 4th yr its four periods. LCA the same as ICT is a subject for them for the L.C.

Saila

partyatmygaff wrote: »

ECDL and that sort of rubbish or a proper computers class?

I suppose depends what you mean by proper, no we didnt learn dos/Linux and all that proper crap :rolleyes:

DOC09UNAM

partyatmygaff wrote: »

ECDL and that sort of rubbish or a proper computers class?

Wow, way to put down all the people that did ECDL.

Naikon

Saila wrote: »

I suppose depends what you mean by proper, no we didnt learn dos/Linux and all that proper crap :rolleyes:

ECDL is complete and utter garbage. Seriously, I know people who just paid for it and got the "Official" cert. Microsoft is not the best when it comes to certification. Most certs are pretty crap, even the technical ones. When it comes to IT, alot of your "skill" is based on merit, and not on a piece of paper that says someone can do something. Ok, maybe I am being unfair on the ECDL, but most of the stuff it teaches is not used by most people.

Dos command line is a joke imo. If you want to properly learn the bash/sh command line in a quick manner, I have found this to be brilliant: http://www.pixelbeat.org/cmdline.html

You're not a programmer if you don't know squat about regular expressions. Oh, and don't think you know everything. I don't, you don't. Believing otherwise is stupidity. And no, you don't have to memorise every little detail. That is what documentation is for.

DOC09UNAM

Naikon wrote: »

ECDL is complete and utter garbage. Seriously, I know people who just paid for it and got the "Official" cert. Microsoft is not the best when it comes to certification. Most certs are pretty crap, even the technical ones. When it comes to IT, alot of your "skill" is based on merit, and not on a piece of paper that says someone can do something. Ok, maybe I am being unfair on the ECDL, but most of the stuff it teaches is not used by most people.

Dos command line is a joke imo. If you want to properly learn the bash/sh command line in a quick manner, I have found this to be brilliant: http://www.pixelbeat.org/cmdline.html

You're not a programmer if you don't know squat about regular expressions. Oh, and don't think you know everything. I don't, you don't. Believing otherwise is stupidity.

I have seen many people get jobs out of ECDL type courses?

Not recently mind you, but I have seen many people get jobs from ECDL.

kowloon

I can type faster than I can write, but I can't type properly.
Wish I had learnt when I was in school as I will never be able to pick it up now.

partyatmygaff

Saila wrote: »

I suppose depends what you mean by proper, no we didnt learn dos/Linux and all that proper crap :rolleyes:

No that's not what I meant by proper. I amn't some smug elitist looking down on anyone who uses anything but hand coded Linux distributions as their main OS. And besides that, learning DOS wouldn't be of much use to you anyway seeing as it's been discontinued for almost an entire decade
By proper I meant useful computer skills that people really need. Things that would come to mind would be learning how to detect and avoid scams. Basic computer maintenance. Internet safety and effectively using the internet. Maybe even a small section dedicated to Office programs as well. They're useful skills that can be applied across the board with computers unlike the ECDL which caters only to Microsoft Office. What would be even better would be if they could have a small section on alternate OSes and browsers as the majority of people (Unfortunately) know nothing but Windows. Windows is brilliant, don't get me wrong but more and more devices are now running Linux or other OSes.

DOC09UNAM wrote: »

Wow, way to put down all the people that did ECDL.

I amn't putting them down or anything. I just dislike the way it's given so much importance when in fact it's pretty limited and teaches very little useful skills barring Microsoft Office. There's even a thread about it in Ranting and Raving. http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056110501

Saila

Naikon wrote: »

ECDL is complete and utter garbage. Seriously, I know people who just paid for it and got the "Official" cert. Microsoft is not the best when it comes to certification. Most certs are pretty crap, even the technical ones. When it comes to IT, alot of your "skill" is based on merit, and not on a piece of paper that says someone can do something. Ok, maybe I am being unfair on the ECDL, but most of the stuff it teaches is not used by most people.

Dos command line is a joke imo. If you want to properly learn the bash/sh command line in a quick manner, I have found this to be brilliant: http://www.pixelbeat.org/cmdline.html

You're not a programmer if you don't know squat about regular expressions. Oh, and don't think you know everything. I don't, you don't. Believing otherwise is stupidity.

newsfalsh my man, most dont do the ECDL to get into programming, its for how to use a computer at the most basic level. Everywhere is full of computers, people need to know how to use them.

Naikon

DOC09UNAM wrote: »

I have seen many people get jobs out of ECDL type courses?

Not recently mind you, but I have seen many people get jobs from ECDL.

Sorry to be a bit of a bastard, but I don't think these jobs are IT related? Good thing about learning vendor specific IT stuff, is that you aren't locked into their tools and mindset. This is why I don't like certification in general. The vendors try to lock you in to their products. This stance holds true for everything non Linux by the way. Certs show you can memorise stuff well. People need to focus less on the certs, more on actual experience imo.

partyatmygaff

Naikon wrote: »

Sorry to be a bit of a bastard, but I don't think these jobs are IT related? Good thing about learning vendor specific IT stuff, is that you aren't locked into their tools and mindset. This is why I don't like certification in general. The vendors try to lock you in to their products. This stance holds true for everything non Linux by the way. Certs show you can memorise stuff well. People need to focus less on the certs, more on actual experience imo.

Exactly what I was saying. Kids need to be taught general computer skills from an early age to be able to adapt to the ever changing world of computers. Programs change with the times but the general underlying skills do not.

Naikon

Saila wrote: »

newsfalsh my man, most dont do the ECDL to get into programming, its for how to use a computer at the most basic level. Everywhere is full of computers, people need to know how to use them.

I know, I should not expect everyone to be programming. That is a bogus propostition. Not everyone needs to work at that level, just like I don't need to know how to do xyz that someone else who knows how to. I suck in plenty of areas. Besides, I helped my parents recently to learn how to do the basics. Progressing well imo. You don't need a cert to learn how to use a computer. Just a computer and some time. Save for intro/basics I admit.

If you learn the concepts behind something, the implementation is a secondary concern. So Instead of asking crap like "How can we ensure pupils learn Office, ask "How can we teach kids to objectively learn what they feel meets their needs?". Lack Choice isn' the issue.

DOC09UNAM

Naikon wrote: »

Sorry to be a bit of a bastard, but I don't think these jobs are IT related? Good thing about learning vendor specific IT stuff, is that you aren't locked into their tools and mindset. This is why I don't like certification in general. The vendors try to lock you in to their products. This stance holds true for everything non Linux by the way. Certs show you can memorise stuff well. People need to focus less on the certs, more on actual experience imo.

Of course it's IT, not that I really care, because I didn't do it, it just seems a bit harsh to completely right it off, because you are above it.

"IT spans a wide variety of areas that include but are not limited to things such as processes, computer software, computer hardware, programming languages, and data constructs. In short, anything that renders data, information or perceived knowledge in any visual format whatsoever, via any multimedia distribution mechanism, is considered part of the domain space known as Information Technology (IT)."

partyatmygaff

DOC09UNAM wrote: »

Of course it's IT, not that I really care, because I didn't do it, it just seems a bit harsh to completely right it off, because you are above it.

We're not debating that it's IT. It is IT but a very limited approach to IT. It teaches people nothing more than Microsoft Office and provides them with skills that will be next to useless on anything but the version of Microsoft office that they learned on let alone another software package or OS. If people are taught useful, general computer skills they will be able to assimilate the rest through experience.

Naikon

DOC09UNAM wrote: »

Of course it's IT, not that I really care, because I didn't do it, it just seems a bit harsh to completely right it off, because you are above it.

"IT spans a wide variety of areas that include but are not limited to things such as processes, computer software, computer hardware, programming languages, and data constructs. In short, anything that renders data, information or perceived knowledge in any visual format whatsoever, via any multimedia distribution mechanism, is considered part of the domain space known as Information Technology (IT)."

Okay, I know my words are harsh, but I honestly believe people can get up to scratch in anything without certification. Persistence is the key. I am not above people just because I know stuff. Just giving my honest opinion about the ECDL and certs in general. These companies want to "certify" people to make a profit.

Bottom line. In general, they don't hold a candle to actual dedication and experimentation. Experimentation with stuff is key. Instead of teaching myopic vendor specific "technology" why not just teach people to evaluate what tech suits their needs best? No, because that won't generate money for shareholders at the end of the day.

Knowing the concepts is key. Which do you think is a "better" skill? Knowing how to implement some maths formula/algorithm in some lang, or how it works at a sufficiently deep non convoluted vendor level
so that you can't implement it in any way you like? Concepts > their implementation.

GTE

Id go for teaching them how to spell properly before typing.

I was having a facebook discussion with English students and I had better spelling. Im a sound engineering students so it doesnt make a huge amount of sense that I was better then the full on English degree people.

Saila

@the debate

we did the basics in Primary, navigation, browsing, saving to flopy discs
probably a bit of typing too.
In secondary we did the above, plus learned the menu bar, status bar, the general generic program stuff, like you say which gives you the platform
to build on with ms office and programs like that.

I also did a fas web design course, which included what was basically a city & guilds ECDL I think at the start, so there was a lot of overlap as I went through these different phases of my life. This is the way to do it, teach the general understnading and therefore the confidence needed to implement it with every program you come across.

Naikon

Saila wrote: »

@the debate

we did the basics in Primary, navigation, browsing, saving to flopy discs
probably a bit of typing too.
In secondary we did the above, plus learned the menu bar, status bar, the general generic program stuff, like you say which gives you the platform
to build on with ms office and programs like that.

I also did a fas web design course, which included what was basically a city & guilds ECDL I think at the start, so there was a lot of overlap as I went through these different phases of my life. This is the way to do it, teach the general understnading and therefore the confidence needed to implement it with every program you come across.

Sound advice. The only other "skill" I should mention is teach people to be inquisitive. If I was to ever offer a test for a cert, I would remove the multiple choice crap, put them in a dingy, damp and possibly stuffy room with a router/switch/app whatever, start deleting random config files/intentionally break stuff and see how they cope. Textbook answers aren't going to save you from the real world imo.

old_aussie

Looking at the posts on this forum, "Speelin and grammar" should be the main priority.

Touch typing could also be beneficial.

Holybejaysus

I wonder will computers and mobile phones eventually have to come with a built in programme to prevent text speak?
I would say yes, they will. We will have to force people to get un-stupid.

coffee_cake

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I've never heard of any secondary school holding computer classes (Barring 4th years). They should introduce an ICT subject for the Leaving Cert. I'd have taken it in a heartbeat.

We did some stupid cert in the junior cert for computers. Or maybe it was 2nd year.
It was pretty basic anyway, I don't remember much of it.
We did have computer classes and a computer lab. Great fun, playin quake with the lads at lunch

pavb2

My girls were taught with this Mavis Beacon CD in sixth class only

R0ot

I'd settle for children being taught manners would make a change from mine and the generation in front and behind mine.

bigneacy

HeadPig wrote: »

The amount of people who "hunt and peck" out there is pretty ridiculous. A typing class would be far more practical than a lot of the rubbish taught in primary schools.

Typing properly is faster and its better for your fingers. Like a lot of other things its easier to learn when you're younger rather than trying to get in the habit in later life.

They are.

My girlfriend's son has computer classes twice a week. He's in senior infants.

Noodleworm

We had some pretty rubbish computer classes in primary school, barely once a week, it was always the first thing to go as a punishment for the class being loud and it only included a few 'educational" games.
I took a extra curricular computer class once a week for the last few years of primary but even that was pretty easy stuff I had learned at home from just clicking around in every program. I was about capable for ECDL at 10.

Computer skills are definitely needed, Go into college you'll be told "write this essay", "make this powerpoint", "research this online". No ones gonna assume you can't do it on a computer. I've never seen a lecturer take anything handwritten.

opinion guy

Holybejaysus wrote: »

I wonder will computers and mobile phones eventually have to come with a built in programme to prevent text speak?
I would say yes, they will. We will have to force people to get un-stupid.

Presumably such a program would also prevent made up words.....such as "un-stupid" ?????

CokaColumbo

We were forced to do Type To Learn for years in primary school. What a trek.

bmarley

Yes, I agree typing should be taught in primary school as it is a skill once learned is never forgotten. While children are now much more computer literate especially in relation to finding their way around the internet, more emphasise needs to be placed on using computer packages such as word, spreadsheets. I read recently that primary schools were getting more grants for computers. I think it is wasteful to have couple of computers in each classroom which are barely used (and when they are used it is for playing games etc). Surely it would be better to have a computer room/suite which the whole class can use at the same time, lessons in typing, word processing etc could be taught by teacher who is knowledgeable in this area. There should also be more emphasis on computers in secondary schools..classes lucky to get 1 hour per week and some classes get none. It's such a pity that children are leaving school without the knowledge of being able to type up a c.v.

Mercy Seat

Wow, I thought kids were taught to type in school.

For some reason I took an interest in it when I was 4 or 5, and was quite a proficient typist by the time I was 6, but our school did computer classes every week, and that involved Typing Tutor. I remember particularly that the voice that read out the letters used to have a kind of funny way of saying 'semi colon'.

I finished primary school in the year 2,000, by the way, just for a timescale there.