To help pass the time I have decided to learn how to type on a different kind of keyboard. We learned on what is known as the QWERTY keyboard, so named for the top six letters on the upper left part of the keyboard. I don’t know exactly how the DVORAK keyboard got it’s name…but it looks like this.
http://homepage.mac.com/chinesemac/LatinExtended/graphics/Dvorak.jpg
The idea is to put all of the most commonly used letters on home row. On your left hand you have all of your vowels and on your right, you have your commonly used consonants. It’s kind of crazy and exciting at the same time. Apparently when you get good at it you can type twice as fast with a higher percentage of accuracy.
This is all terribly exciting I’m sure. But if you are interested there is a website that shows you how to change the settings on your keyboard, just tape on the different letters and practice away.
http://www.powertyping.com/dvorak/typing.html
It’s also somewhat enlightening, because doing something with which I have no knowledge or previous experience is incredibly frustrating. It’s probably equivalent to a lot of the things that I am trying to teach my students.
D.
The problem with learning Dvorak (I thought about this once too) is that once you learn it, you’re fine when you’re sitting at your own computer, but the rest of the world is operating on Qwerty, so anytime you have to use a friend’s computer, or a public computer for instance, you’re basically just hunting and pecking. Although if I remember correctly, that’s what you were doing in high school anyway, haha.