A few weeks ago, a teacher friend of mine shared a technology question on Facebook. She asked "Is it still important for us to teach touch typing in computer class?" She tagged me and a few other friends who are kind of "techy teachers", and the discussion that followed was interesting.

The majority of teacher said, "Yes learning touch typing benefits students." However, the overwhelming majority also said "No, it should not be ALL you learn in a computer class." So I got to thinking about it and realized that touch typing is to technology skills in the same way that handwriting is to creative writing. Important, but not the MOST important.

How is Touch Typing Similar to Handwriting?
Teaching touch typing basics helps students to use a computer more effectively. If students know where the keys are, they can type in anything faster and clearer - whether it's an essay or just their search criteria for YouTube. 
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Having clear and legible handwriting allows students to write a story more effectively. Not only can students proofread their own work better if their writing is clear, but they can receive help from others better. Also, when students are NOT publishing their work on technology (And let's remember student writing only began being published on computer in the 90's.), their neat handwriting allows them to get their ideas out to other people.

Why Do We Need To Teach the Basics?
I often hear "Is it really important to TEACH these touch typing skills? Won't students just pick them up?" Yes, my father can type on a keyboard in that hunt and peck fashion and he can get by. Yes, a students can often look at a letter and draw a similar one on their paper, even if they loop around the circle 3 times before giving the a a tail. Yes the basics can be picked up without direct instruction. But when they are picked up this way, students:

1. teach themselves ineffective strategies (hunting and pecking, incorrect hand grips, etc.)
2. get set in their ways of doing things and have a harder time re-learning the more effective ways 

So it IS important for us to teach students touch typing basics, just like it is important for us to do some handwriting practice. If you're not sure where to start with touch typing - this blog post on Keyboarding Websites will give you some ideas.

What's happening in your classroom? Do you teach typing skills? Do you teach handwriting? If you're not teaching these basic skills, why not? I'd love to hear what's going on in classrooms around the world, so please leave us a comment.
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​Happy Teaching!

Back to school sales, back to school planning, back to school shopping - it feels like my world right now surrounds around the back to school season right now. Is anyone else there?  In addition to preparing for the Teachers Pay Teachers 2 Day Back to School Sale, which is going on now (Aug 1 & Aug 2, 2018), I have been putting the finishing touches on my Back to School Escape Room. I'm going to be using this with my classroom  AFTER I have taught all of my procedures and routines. This will be our final "back to school" activity before heading into the heavy beast of curriculum, but I wanted to have it finished before I get back into the daily routine of school on Monday.

Now normally, I try out every resource I sell in my classroom BEFORE posting it on Teachers Pay Teachers. However, I wanted to make sure that others benefited from this highly engaging back to school escape room this year. So I decided to go ahead and list it early, and then leave it FREE - just for the month of August. My hope is that other teachers will try it out and let me know if they find any glitches. I can then fix any glitches before it becomes a paid product on September 1st. ​ So if you or your colleagues want to be a trial classroom for my Back to School Escape Room, please download it at my Teachers Pay Teachers store BEFORE September 1st. Then after you have completed the activity with your kids, please send me an e-mail at the address provided in the escape room to let me know how it went!

Here's hoping your back to school season goes well! It's going to be the best year yet!