<p>edad:</p>
<p>I think many kids have new types of KB skills today. Both of my Ds were on computers when they were 2 and I’m surprised by how good they are with the KB today despite having never taken a formal class. They’re both much better than me even though I’ve use a KB extensively for a long time now (writing code, emails, cc, etc.), although I never has a formal KB class and am in the hunt and peck category (although reasonable fast for a H&P - not in your league though).</p>
<p>I am not sure I understand about “new types” of keyboarding skills. As far as I know touch typing has not changed in 50 years. Without standard typing skills, it is difficult to attain much more than 40-50 wpm. I was never fast at 60 or so wpm but that was in the old days when you could not afford to make typos. I remember taking keyboarding in HS and the faster kids were in the 80-120 wpm range, with very few errors.</p>
<p>I guess I meant that the method of learning is quite different. When kids start using keyboards at age 2 versus when most of our generation (excepting me) learned KB in HS, they tend to learn the KB in an different manner. They then use the KB much more between that age and the age of say HS than our generation did. I’m sure a 2-7 year old with this much exposure learns differently than one who starts at a much later age. I’m not trying to imply it’s at the level of one who was taught specific KB skills, but again, I’m surprised by how capable they are. It’s quite beyond the normal H&P one would expect them to have. </p>
<p>This might make an interesting study.</p>
<p>Yes, u<em>u</em>dad, I think my DS and DH illustrate this. DH is a hunt-and-peck guy. S…L…O…W. DS had keyboarding classes in middle school, but he is so fast with the developed-since-age-5 techniques he’s self-invented that he doesn’t bother with “correct” keyboard practices. His technique looks sort of “hunt-and-pecky” to me, but there is a world of difference between his speed and accuracy and that of poor dinosaur DH.</p>
<p>So based on a consensus of 2, it appears that kids are not taught KB skills. What a shame, considering that the age of typists and secretaries is long gone. It does not surprise me that kids who use a KB beginning at an early age will develop some speed. If they also had learned to use all 10 fingers with touch typing, their speed would be amazing. I have often wondered how fast my D types. When I listen to her using the KB it sounds like the speed of an electric gattling gun. I wonder how our kids would do with an old fashioned typing test.</p>
<p>I understand kids are no longer taught how to write using long hand cursive. There was a recent thread where many claimed that block printing was ok and just as fast. That never made sense to me either. Cursive was designed to be faster because the pen does not leave the paper except for dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s.</p>
<p>My daughter is finding the workload very strenuous. In fact, she just pulled her first “all nighter” due to assignments. However, she is in an art program where they work kids like dogs. She does have enough free time, however,to be in marching band and participate in practicing twice a week. Thus, she has rapidly used up her free time with marching band.</p>
<p>The kids from my son’s highschool have consistently reported that college is a breeze compared to their highschool. Writing assignments are the core of that highschool, and the kids who come out of there, find writing papers a breeze. Not so with some other high schools. If kids are not getting a lot of writing assignments in highschool, college can be a bad surprise. They may find out that despite their good grades in highschool, they are inadequately prepared for their college.</p>
<p>edad- IDK if I’m part of the “consensus of 2” re teaching of keyboarding skills. But just want to be clear: my S was definitely taught keyboarding skills in just the same way I was taught “touch typing” back in the day. BUT… he just kind of “grinned and beared it” through that term (it was a middle school class) and blithely returned to his self-taught non-method.</p>
<p>Works for him. But, like you, I tend to believe he would be lightning fast and more accurate if he used the <em>correct</em> touch-typing method he was taught.</p>
<p>Computer Skills is a required course at my DD’s HS. It covers typing and very basic computer skills (like creating and saving a file). </p>
<p>It’s mainly about typing, and the kids need to type a minimum of 35 wpm, using touch typing, to get an A.</p>
<p>uscd<em>ucla</em>dad, i was an undergrad in the pre-HP days so the slide rule ruled until our department installed the Wang SE360 computer lab my sophmore year. What a wonder it was, a precursor to the desktop with no mainframe card reader and instant output!!! Of course it was only a “high powered” calculator. ;-)</p>
<p>While I can’t speak to the difference in workload now compared to a generation ago, I can certainly speak to the difference in workload from high school to college. My difficulties were never with the level of the work; it was all stuff that I could do, but the sheer quantity was so overwhelming. I went from doing maybe an hour of homework a night and a little more on weekends to spending many days working from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep—homework, class, papers, work-study job, etc. I remember very well how horrified I was when I saw the reading list for one of my classes my freshman year of college. In this Great-Books-esque course, we were going to read more in one semester than we’d read all year in my senior year AP English class. High school AP classes, in my experience, are nowhere near college classes in difficulty or workload. I don’t believe, however, that this (in my case as an English major, at least) has anything to do with advances in technology because most of my workload is just reading and two to three papers per class per semester.</p>
<p>As for the monitoring of alcohol use on college campuses, to quote my RA freshman year “just don’t let me see you with it.” I think that is largely the attitude of most universities concerning alcohol use. While the administration may take a strict stance against alcohol, the lower level officials (i.e. RA’s) really don’t care, and I’m not sure they should. It’s not there responsibility to baby-sit anyone; in my opinion, they’re there to prevent anyone’s actions from having a negative effect on the other students or as an optional advisory source.</p>
<p>My school uses the Alcohol.edu program, and I have yet to meet anyone (among the students, at least) who felt it was useful. The summer before I started college my school sent me the website with the vague directions stating that “all students must complete” the first part program before coming to campus and nonexistent repercussions if we didn’t, but I’m a huge nerd, so I did it anyway. It is basically a three to four hour (if I remember correctly) online video series with quizzes and opinion polls after each section, but 9 out of 10 people, myself included, let the videos run and did something else while waiting for the quizzes and polls. It’s been said before on this thread, and I agree, it really only serves its ulterior purpose as a safety net for the school against law suits—but then it shouldn’t be the school’s responsibility in the first place (again, just my opinion).</p>
<p>Wow, that was a long post; sorry about that.</p>
<p>“Cursive was designed to be faster because the pen does not leave the paper except for dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s.”</p>
<p>Nope. Cursive was designed for feather pens to maximize the use of ink in a single uptake and to prevent blotching. It was never designed to be faster, and, in fact, in the 19th Century, schools taught (to the same student) as many as six different kinds of cursive for various purposes (personal letters, bills of sale, official correspondence, etc.) Cursive is based on a technology that essentially became obsolete in the late 1950s (I do remember my Waterman! as did my shirts). It’s rather like the use of hand signals for cars before they perfected electrical blinkers.</p>