For as little as $5 per student per year (in some cases even less), students can get one of the most useful skills they will ever have: the ability to communicate fluently through the keyboard.
All educators know that students need keyboarding skill for online testing. Many students will need it for college entrance qualification, or typing class exemption.
While these requirements are very practical, the larger benefit looms like a big oak tree!
The biggest benefit of keyboarding skill is the immediate acceleration of learning, and the better return on the enormous investment we are already making in children’s education!
Wiser educators always remember we are spending about $13,000 per annum to provide schooling for each elementary student. At the high school level, we invest about $16,000 per student per year.
To avoid spending $5 to accelerate the returns on this investment – the price of a cup of tall coffee – is downright foolish.
“We have other priorities,” say some educators.
All subject areas, especially writing, English, social studies, engineering, science and even math, all benefit from fluent keyboarding skill.
“Children already know how to type,” say other educators.
Even if they all do know how to type, nobody can argue with the fact that every student who takes typing instruction, accelerates whatever fluency they possess.
Others say, “By the time our students graduate, they won’t need to type.”
Even if this were true, the biggest argument for excellent communication skills is the benefit students receive right now, not later.
Finally, some educators say, “We don’t have time in the curriculum to teach keyboarding.”
Accelerating learning in all subjects means that all subjects can be taught and learned more efficiently.
With accelerations of 10% or more, it’s like seeing blue sky appearing through the clouds.
“Well, I am still not convinced,” say some.
“I am!” says anybody who has had the pleasure and benefit of typing really well.
People who have fluent typing skills of 60 to 120 words per minute can hardly imagine life without their keyboarding skills. In fact, no excellent typist even questions the need for the skill.
To accelerate the return on the tens of thousands of dollars that we are already investing in each student, by spending as little as a cup of coffee, is an incredible bargain indeed!
Art Willer is the founding president of Bytes of Learning Incorporated, www.bytesoflearning.com. He is a former classroom teacher and school technology leader.
