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Post by penguy on Apr 28, 2020 2:14:28 GMT
I had my typing class in about 1955 from Mr. Fox. I rather enjoyed it and feel it is one of my most used jr. high classes. The keyboarding skills are skills I am still using on the computer and I am many times faster typing now than I ever was then! Anyone notice how using ariel font how the r n (rn) can easily look like m? I find with my handwriting I often place a tale on the letter following a t instead of going back and crossing the t. For example with the word stutter I would write st but instead of crossing the t separately I would give the letter following (the u) a tail that crosses the t. But with the word stutter I would go back and use a single line to cross the double tt. Anyone else do the same thing? I don't know how it started but now I don't even think about it...until now. I learned the Palmer Method and liked the lower case letters but did not like the upper case, thought they looked clunky. So over the years I have borrowed upper case letters that I liked from other script styles. By the way did you know that upper case and lower case nomenclature came from type setters? When they were hand setting type for a newspaper the Capitals were in an upper type case and the small letters in a lower case on the type setting bench. I enjoy writing long words but sometime get lost in the process of writing them
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Post by jamberrychoux on Apr 28, 2020 2:35:37 GMT
I had my typing class in about 1955 from Mr. Fox. I rather enjoyed it and feel it is one of my most used jr. high classes. The keyboarding skills are skills I am still using on the computer and I am many times faster typing now than I ever was then! Anyone notice how using ariel font how the r n (rn) can easily look like m? Mr Fox is definitely a good name for a typing teacher! We had to type this sentence in class - "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" - because it uses all 26 letters of the alphabet. Yes, I've noticed that issue before with the Arial font, and it is something that I need to be careful about when I am preparing contracts and/or letters at work. Sometimes I will change font types just so I avoid any potential issues like that.
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Post by distractedmom on Apr 28, 2020 2:57:00 GMT
I never learned how to type. I moved a lot growing up and it was one of those things that got lost between moves.
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Post by allanorn on Apr 28, 2020 4:42:55 GMT
I learned to type properly in 9th grade computer-keyboarding class. It was relatively new; we still had one or two rooms full of manual or manual-electric typewriters for actual typing class. I think they were eventually made obsolete shortly after I graduated high school. Now I own four manual typewriters and am looking for a Smith-Corona Sterling from the late 40s or early 50s in good condition.
Problem characters in cursive are "my" and "ny" (as in "any") because I learned D'Nealian and I have problems writing out the correct number of humps I need to get an accurate lower-case "m" or "n" with a trailing "y", especially when connecting the previous letter to the m/n.
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Post by alcyone on Apr 28, 2020 7:04:38 GMT
I took a typing test once but it was scored in some antiquated way that counted backspaces as "errors", like you were using a mechanical typewriter. Just lemme type the whole thing out, on a real live computer, and score the finished result. I'm curious how we all learned to type? I first learned in high school through a formal typewriting class! We had manual typewriters - the type where you actually had a manual return lever after you were done with each sentence and wanted to start another row. Then, shortly afterwards, I guess the school got some money, and the manual typewriters were replaced by electric typewriters. That was a big technology change for us! My kids received some basic typewriting instruction in computer class during elementary school years, but it was nothing formal or extensive. I asked my son recently about this, and he said he doesn't think he is typing "correctly" on the keyboard. He says he just types in the way that feels natural to him which he said gets the job done. I learned to program before I learned to type, so by the time I got to high school and took a typing course, I only lasted 2 weeks -- it slowed me down too much for the programming class I was in. My typing style is pretty fast but would appear pretty random to someone watching. I think my hands even cross sometimes. I mostly use index and thumbs but other fingers get involved as needed. I don't look at the keyboard as I type. Someone who types correctly can absolutely type faster than I can, but my intuitive style is fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. My high school course used IBM Selectrics.
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Post by Lupine on Apr 28, 2020 13:29:18 GMT
Wow, you have a really good memory! I had 2 typing teachers, and I remember the second one I had, but not the first one. I do remember the names of all of my elementary school teachers from 1st through 6th grade. My 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Madison, was the one I credit for actually helping me to finally understand how to tell time on a clock face. My Mom can remember her gradeschool teachers, I can't. That's pretty impressive. How I learned to tell time is one of my most told stories. I wonder how your story goes? Small coincidence, my gradeschool (Kindergarten - 8th) was named Madison #1. Proof of god right there.
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Post by jamberrychoux on Apr 28, 2020 17:29:24 GMT
Someone who types correctly can absolutely type faster than I can, but my intuitive style is fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. How interesting that your hands actually cross over sometimes when you type. With the classic QWERTY system that would never occur. I have read before that there was a movement to get away from the QWERTY system and to come up with something that was more natural, but I don't recall what people wanted to replace it with. But, it sounds like today's generation of kids are not using QWERTY anyway, so maybe it is all a moot point these days?
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Post by macleodmj on May 1, 2020 16:50:57 GMT
Someone who types correctly can absolutely type faster than I can, but my intuitive style is fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. How interesting that your hands actually cross over sometimes when you type. With the classic QWERTY system that would never occur. I have read before that there was a movement to get away from the QWERTY system and to come up with something that was more natural, but I don't recall what people wanted to replace it with. But, it sounds like today's generation of kids are not using QWERTY anyway, so maybe it is all a moot point these days? I have read that QWERTY was invented shortly after typewriters were perfected in the late 1870s. The early machines couldn't keep up with humans' potential typing speed, leading to classic key jams. So they changed the keyboard layout to QWERTY from what it was before to slow people down. I learned to type, sort of, in Typing 10.
For handwriting I learned whatever roundhand was being taught in Alberta schools in the late fifties and early sixties. It was legible at any rate until my mid-twenties. My first career was journalism and I went on the desk. my handwriting deteriorated sharply. As a reporter I took a lot of notes. As a desker in those pre-computer days, I wrote a slug word on a page layout and on a story to show where the story went. My wife complained she couldn't read my hand. Thinking, "Pot, meet kettle," I took up calligraphy as a hobby and changed my handwriting to cursive italic and became legible again.
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Post by radellaf on May 2, 2020 19:54:30 GMT
"today's generation of kids are not using QWERTY anyway"
Where? They may be using it with their thumbs, but they're using it. Alphabetic keyboards turned out not to be any easier, and Dvorak (which I used for a few years after getting RSIs from Cipro) never gained any popularity. Qwerty is pretty much it.
I learned to touch type writing messages on 1980s BBSes and 1990s usenet newsgroups. Only thing I think I really did different than the official way was to not use my pinky for the shift key. I'd lift and move one hand outwards and use a thumb. Don't do that any more.
My main typing difficulty these days is the Apple "magic keyboard" which for whatever reason is easier than any other to get off the home row on. No real front edge to it (that you touch) so no touch-able distance, and all the keys feel exactly the same (even the F-keys). Only think I like about it is that it's "full" size keys but small overall. Takes up very little of my crowded (half with pens) desk. Also, I have a mouse on my right and the big trackpad on the left, so that takes extra room.
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Post by Lupine on May 3, 2020 14:57:43 GMT
Two more random thoughts: When I was going through a hard time and feeling ill my handwriting was awful. I thought that's just what happens with age, but since I recovered, my handwriting recovered along with me. Maybe that's obvious, but I was surprised.
And in the technical/typing discussion, my Mom's touch screen keyboard does not respond to her. There is more to the pressure and length of touch than I realized. Given enough practice, apparently, we learn touch screen "intuitively" but introducing a touch screen to a new person makes it obvious that there's a little learning curve. Remember when styluses were more important? I think that was more important when more people were new to touch screen. Just a theory.
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Post by radellaf on May 4, 2020 17:34:52 GMT
My mom has had trouble with touch screens (capacitive type like on phones) in the winter. I do sometimes. If your fingers get too dry then the screen won't sense them with normal pressure, if at all. Not a fan of licking my fingertip to get it to work, but if I have to.
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Post by distractedmom on May 4, 2020 18:22:02 GMT
My mom has had trouble with touch screens (capacitive type like on phones) in the winter. I do sometimes. If your fingers get too dry then the screen won't sense them with normal pressure, if at all. Not a fan of licking my fingertip to get it to work, but if I have to. It’s moisture? I always thought it was heat and my hands were too cold in the winter... Always learning something new here...
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2020 11:08:46 GMT
I never learned how to type. Me neither. It was only offered to girls in 6th form in our high school and as I left at 16 in May 1984 it was never something I ever had to learn. It was only once I met Neil and he was working at Telewest and introduced me to computers (around 1998-ish?) that I first used a keyboard. But even now I'm still a one finger typist Very very fast but still only use the middle finger of my right hand
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Post by ginny on May 7, 2020 16:21:03 GMT
I never learned how to type. Me neither. It was only offered to girls in 6th form in our high school and as I left at 16 in May 1984 it was never something I ever had to learn. It was only once I met Neil and he was working at Telewest and introduced me to computers (around 1998-ish?) that I first used a keyboard. But even now I'm still a one finger typist Very very fast but still only use the middle finger of my right hand I had to learn to type for my job. It was a requirement - you had to bring a certificate. I learnt touchtyping with 10 finger system on an electric typewriter. When I started my actual job in the late 80s, there was an old IBM 'golf ball typewriter' in my office. I loved it to pieces - it was marvellous. I was sad when it was replaced by an electronic typewriter in the 90s. Nowadays, I use a computer, obviously. Blindtyping has made my life a lot easier in some respects, not only at work. I type some of my letters when time is tight, and I also type up generic newsletters every once in a while or travelogues, not to mention e-mails etc.
As for handwriting / penmanship - I never had formal calligraphy lessons or anything like that. My handwriting just kind of formed over the years, based on what was the 'Latin Script' back then (I started school in the 1970s, today's pupils learn to write in a different, more simplified script). It's fairly legible, I'd say, and I have no particular issues with letters or combinations of them.
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Post by vertolive on May 22, 2020 23:26:37 GMT
I was taught the Palmer Method in grade school. As soon as I could, I ditched the weird capitals and replaced them with my own version of block print capitals. Cheating further, I often don’t connect all of the letters in whatever word I’m writing. Sorry pen pals!
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