CTC - Digital Literacy: Keyboarding

College involves typing. A lot of typing. Sometimes a whole lot of typing. If you have to look at your keyboard to find the correct keys, writing that essay for your humanities class is going to take much longer than it needs to. 

Since typewriters have been replaced with computers and word-processing software, we generally refer to typing as keyboarding. Either term is perfectly acceptable. 

Back to the point: looking down at the keyboard for every letter typed is known as “hunting and pecking.” A person who is hunting and pecking is not likely to type much faster than 10-15 words per minute (WPM). 

A person who is keyboarding with only a few fingers and frequently looking at the keyboard is unlikely to type faster than 20 WPM. 

Proper keyboarding technique involves using all of our fingers and avoiding looking down at the keyboard. This is known as touch typing. 

An average speed for touch typists is about 40 WPM. 

A very impressive typing speed is 75 WPM. 

The fastest typing speed ever recorded (as of January 2021) is 216 WPM. (WOW!) 

 The video below shows you what proper keyboarding technique looks like.  

Six Secret Keyboarding Techniques 

To get started on touch typing, go to https://typing.com 

Create a free account (this will save your progress). 

Here, you will find videos and lessons to learn and practice good keyboarding techniques.