ABC's OF TYPING

About 20 years ago the only people who took typing classes in high school were young women aspiring to be secretaries -- or typing teachers -- someday.

But as we have entered the computer age, virtually no one is exempt from the discipline of typing.

"I suppose I'm one of those old dogs that had to be taught some new tricks," said Pat Andrews, a typing teacher at Scott City High School. "I have been teaching for 20-some-odd years, and I've been witness to a real change in the technology available to students.

"When I first learned to type, I learned on a manual typewriter; later we made the change to electric typewriters," she said. "Now we've entered the computer age. Teaching in this area, you really have to keep up with changes in the technology."

Andrews said that many of her students come to her classes already knowing how to operate computers.

"Kids are becoming so computer literate at such an early age that you really have to keep up with things to stay a step ahead of them," she said.

Since children are being introduced to computers early on, Scott City schools are introducing their students to typing early, too.

"The first time students can learn to type is in the seventh grade in the second half of their lifeskills class," Andrews said. "A lot of the kids who have been using a keyboard for a long time, but had never been taught how to type, use the old hunt-and-peck technique.

"By teaching them how to type in the seventh grade, they can begin to take computer classes in the eighth grade without pecking at the keyboard," she said.

The kinds of students taking typing classes are no longer just young women aspiring to be secretaries.

"We have a wide variety of students who take typing classes," said Katy Andersson, a computer and typing teacher at Cape Central High School. "A majority of the students who take my computer course are college bound, but not all of them are. I have about 150 students taking my course this semester."

Before students can take Andersson's computer applications course they must have been through keyboarding and formatting I, taught by Jerry Woemmel. His students use electric typewriters in acclimating themselves to the keyboard.

"During the first half of the semester we build keyboarding skills," said Woemmel. "The second half of the semester is largely spent learning to process simple documents such as letters, tables or short reports."

Woemmel said typing classes of today do not focus so much on typing speed in words per minute, but rather the discipline of typing.

"From our standpoint, once a student learns to type on one kind of machine, he or she can easily adapt to other machines," said Woemmel. "The difference between a typewriter and a computer keyboard is not all that radical."

Because word processing programs are equipped with dictionaries, Woemmel said no longer is a great deal of emphasis placed on the mechanics of error correction in typed copy.

"We realize that with these modern machines, typographical errors can be easily corrected," he said. "In the business world today people are using computers and word-processing programs a great deal more than they are using conventional typewriters."

But typing teachers do still teach double spacing after periods, using tab keys to indent and line up copy and returning after the end of every line.

"Those are basic skills which can be used in just about any occupation," said Woemmel.

Andrews believes it is important that students learn to proofread their work.

"Spell checkers are fine, but they can't tell you if you've used a word twice, have omitted a word or even left out a whole line," she said. "I wish someone could invent a way to have kids proofread their work and be responsible about the quality of their work."

But computers do have their advantages, Andrews said.

"You can edit your copy on a computer, add things, save files and correct mistakes," she said. "Sometimes I find myself able to type faster on a typewriter, but I can definitely see the advantages of using a computer."

But "seeing" is one of the problems of teaching typing on computers, she said.

"The hardest part of teaching typing is getting the students to look at their sheet and not the computer screen," said Andrews. "You almost want to turn off the screen so that they can't look at it, but then if they were using a typewriter, they would be able look at their paper.

"The temptation to look is far greater when you have a computer screen sitting there at eye-level in front of the student," she said.

There are several levels of typing and computer courses students can opt to take at both Scott City and Cape Central high schools. But none of them are required.

"Students are greatly encouraged to take some sort of typing class -- we recommend a semester of keyboarding and a semester of computer applications -- while they are in high school," said Woemmel. "The skills we teach them will be useful just about anywhere they go."