There is a huge debate about whether or not our students should be taught typing skills in school. The huge presence of cell phones and tablets makes some question whether traditional typing will remain relevant in the future. However, it is not likely typing will go away any time soon. Here are a few of the many reasons why students should continue to learn typing in school.
State Tests
State tests are given on computer and require typing skills. Students who understand touch typing can more easily finish written responses in the time frame allotted.
Communication
Students, adults, and career professionals frequently communicate via text. In emails, letters, and written requests. Learning to type will help students with long-term communication skills.
Job Applications
Job applications are filled out primarily on computer these days. Learning to type will prepare students for understanding how to fill out a job application.
Career Skills
Typing is an expectation in many career fields that are lucrative and available in today’s world. In fact, in most instances the ability to type is non-negotiable as a skill that is required for the job posting.
For all of these reasons, and many more, students should be well prepared in the field of typing.
This is a fantastic list! I don’t think typing will go away soon, either, even though modern technologies seem to be logical replacements. It is possible typing will one day be fully replaced, but I’m not sure we’re quite ready yet!
Many question whether the rise of voice recognition is the natural next step away from typing. I personally don’t believe so. Firstly, the technology isn’t quite good enough. The amount of times Siri and Alexa misunderstand should give you an idea. Not only does speech recognition have these issues, there is the added difficulty of including grammar as well. Currently homophones seem to be the biggest stumbling block for speech recognition programs. The tech isn’t advanced enough to decipher word choice from context.
That being said, even if the technology was precise, I’m not sure it would entirely rid us of typing. Consider working in a noisy room - we can’t always control our environment, after all. Or perhaps you’re thinking out loud and say, “never mind, I don’t want to write that.” Now your vocalized thoughts have been added to your typed document. Think about the amount of time it would take to ensure the software translated your speech correctly - would typing not be more beneficial?
For these reasons, I don’t think typing skills have much competition right now. As @Lyka_Remeticado shows in the list above, there are plenty of important areas that utilize typing. Despite plenty of future tech in development, I don’t think learning to type will be a need that goes away for a long, long time.
