Keyboarding
Keyboarding Instruction in the Elementary Grades
Although the driver for focusing on keyboarding in the elementary grades is the online component of the MAP assessment, keyboarding is a technology literacy skill necessary for students to become productive citizens in an increasingly global and digital world. Introducing students to keyboarding in the elementary grades ensures students develop correct and efficient keyboarding techniques instead of acquiring self-taught, and sometimes hard-to-break habits. Learning to quickly and effectively communicate using a keyboard allows students to focus on the quality of their writing. Students must become proficient at being able to think and type at the same time as they progress through the grade levels and are asked to produce longer and more comprehensive writings. By the time a student is in high school, they should know the physical keyboard by touch and be able to type as fast as they think.
There is a misconception that because students are “tech-savvy”, they do not need formal keyboarding instruction. Using the digital keyboard on a small touch device such as a phone or tablet to play games is not comparable to using a full size, physical QWERTY keyboard.
Click this link to read the full District Keyboarding Whitepaper
Keyboarding Applications in Clever
Typing Agent - REQUIRED for students in grades 3-5. Students and classroom teachers MUST log in using the Clever portal. Generic school administrator credentials are to be used to run reports. Directions are sent to schools via emails on accessing the administrator accounts.
Typing.com is for grades PK-2. School administrator accounts are not available. Teacher accounts are used to access student data and run reports. Teachers and students must log in using Clever.
Nitrotype is a "gamified" keyboarding application for all students. This is just for fun and practice and no reports are expected or required.