Gordon, Herald,
I recommend that you contact your local primary school, dole
office, etc. and enroll in a class with a teacher. IMHO typing is
a manual skill that requires learning proper hand configurations. Hand
configuration can be seen and corrected by a teacher, but cannot yet be
detected through the computer keyboard.
Since it involves motion for which our hand was not designed, it
is easy for the self-taught to learn and reinforce bad habits with practice.
These bad habits are natural tendencies resulting from our hand design, but
are suboptimal for keyboarding, a task unsuited to our hand design.
The phenomenon is called interference, and has been well documented during
the study of millions learning telegraphy.
In my company, we have many who attended primary (age 7-12) school
in different states. Some states taught typing to their children. Some
attended adult classes. Some taught themselves by unstructured practice.
The division is obvious. Those who learned as children or in adult classes
type 50-120 wpm and usually focus on the screen, what they read, or empty
space but rarely at the keyboard. Those who are self-taught type 15-60 wpm
and spend most of their time looking at the keyboard. A few who went to
typing classes to improve their self-taught typing describe the tortures
of class and how little improvement they saw.
I have heard but not seen that typing programs can be used for
effective practice and to restore atrophied skills, but IMHO an instructor
that can provide feedback on proper hand configuration is required for
an introduction to typing, and until the muscle habits are built.
Good luck whatever you decide,
--
Robert Meier
FANUC Robotics North America, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Voice: 1-248-377-7469 Fax: 1-248-377-7363
