Recommendation for touch typing?

[Abundance]

I need to improve my efficiency by learning how to touch type properly as I still have to look at the keyboard all the time whilst I am typing.

Can anyone recommend a course / software that they have tried?

Thanks,

Sharyn

[fdjaudinesjr]

Mavis Beacon and this one...

TypingMaster - Touch Typing Tutor with Optimal Learning

[Dixie Man]

Touch typing is such a useful skill, you won't regret learning how to do it.

I used the following free web based course and taught myself how to do it in about 2 weeks.

FREE ONLINE TYPING COURSE

After you've slowed down initially you just keep getting quicker. Good luck.

[Abundance]

Thank you for both of your suggestions. I'll check them out & see how I get on.

It is something I should have come to grips with much earlier but it is never too late to learn ! I've made it one of my short term goals for 2007.

Sharyn

[greyman]

Hi Abundance,
In my personal experience, you don't even need software to learn touch typing. Please check out this page:

Typing with All Ten Fingers - df7cb.de

The key thing is to print out the keyboard with correct position of fingers, and then you can start typing. The main concern should be to not press the key with a wrong finger. Initially, you would type slightly slower, but after a few weeks, you will find yourself to type much more quickly than before.

And yes, this is a very usefull skill to learn - the main advantage is, that you don't need to think about the typing, so you can fully concentrate on the content itself. Improved eficiency is a nice bonus as well.

[chopsaw]

Abundance,

With a computer it is pretty easy to learn. Open a blank word document,set your hands so that your index fingers rest at the "f" and "j" keys. And start typing to learn where the keys are. Keep your eyes on the screen not your hands. I would do several repetitions of Q then I'd do QU and make up some other combinations that work well together. Mind you, that this is a skill like any other and is going to take practice to master. It took me a solid day to get the feel of it. I'm not a fast typist, but I'm quick enough to keep up with my thoughts.

Hope this helps.

[Brutha]

Replace the buttons with each other.
If your finger already "know" where which key is you should still be able to type.
It takes some time to get adjusted but after a while you won't look at the keyboard anymore.

[Abundance]

Thanks for the tips everyone, I appreciate them.


Sharyn

[The Universal Call]

*cough cough* Chat-program *cough cough*

I'm serious. I used to spend my days in a trivia-room at IRC in my younger days (maybe three years ago, when I was 14-15) and unless you adapted to typing like a God you wouldn't score any points - ever. At least not when there were other people playing Yes, I started out looking at the keyboard, trying to recall how long it took me to figure out touch-typing I am getting a rough number of 2 weeks (I'm almost a natural, amazing). When looking through this thread I see that the second reply offered a link claiming how to learn you touch-typing in a mere 2 weeks. It shouldn't take longer than that, it's not hard, really (I'm generalizing this, yeah, but it's still somewhat relevant) and I would surely have pulled it off sooner too, unless I hadn't actually been *that* inspired to learn it (I was new at chatting, and new at the chatroom, my wish for touch-typing wasn't at all that big in the beginning).

Being both someone that plays and writes on the computer this is my layout:
Left pinky at shift, ringfinger at a, middlefinger at w, index finger at d, and my thumb at the space. When writing my right hand is somewhat free, and only the index, middle, and ring- finger take part in the writing (when playing this hand is obviously used by the mouse).

As told by the others in this thread (and pretty selfdeclarant) this is a great skill too learn - if one is the kind of person that uses a computer regularly. However, I digress, back to my first argument - a chatprogram can really aid you! If you got a favorite place to spend your typing days; I would go there, and chat away. Also, you can challenge yourself. Closing one's eyes when writing something and pressing enter has the somewhat amusing effect that if you wrote wrong you will be harrassed for it by your friends, and if you did it correctly- you learned something.

Anyway, I frown at myself considering this is a rather unnecessary input in your thread, considering you've probably already resorted to one of the given links in this thread.