SAND HILLS — Marshall Sowell, a junior at Deane Bozeman School, is taking the Computing for College and Careers course this year.
Sowell said keyboard instruction will help when he writes emails to his future boss or has to type a message to a customer when he’s out in the workforce. It’s because of the class he can make a typed document look good.
“It has been one of the greatest classes I’ve ever taken,” Sowell said.
The course is taught in a computer lab, one of nine labs at the school, and is part of Bozeman’s focus on computer keyboard instruction and a technology-based curriculum, which is emphasized at the school. There are currently 269 computers at the school, with plans to add more, Assistant Principal Ivan Beach said.
Sowell said learning how to properly type will stay with him forever. Because of the class, he said, he can write papers and essays faster. The skill is important, as quick typing is part of statewide assessment testing, and the typing testing is timed.
“You’re in trouble,” Sowell said of students who aren’t skilled at typing.
Before taking the class, Sowell would do “chicken pecking” on a keyboard, he and the class teacher Brittany Barnes said. Sowell said now he can type better and can definitely write an essay faster than he was able to two or three years ago, he said.
Now in her second year of teaching the class, Barnes feels like keyboard typing is an important skill for students to learn.
“I love it,” Barnes said of teaching the class.
Barnes has a certification in business education and also has taught English and journalism. Barnes said everything is on computers.
“Technology is in every single job,” Barnes said.
Barnes said most students only know how to type with two thumbs — smartphone style — at first. The students were shocked when Barnes made them type without them looking at the keyboard, she said. Barnes sometimes placed a black cover bar over keyboards when students used them. Students are supposed to use all fingers on a keyboard, Barnes said.
Some students don’t have computer access at home, so the class is an opportunity for them to use a computer, she said.
Throughout the year, Barnes said, nine to 10 weeks are spent in the class on typing. During the class students also learn about using Microsoft Office. Most of the students who took typing class are ninth- and 10th-graders, she said.
Students younger than that, all the way down to pre-kindergarten, are being introduced to computer keyboards at the school. Leigh Hawkins, media specialist at Bozeman, teaches students about typing in fourth and fifth grade.
Hawkins said these students also type essays. While cursive handwriting still is touched on in third grade and by other teachers, Hawkins said students in kindergarten already are working with computers.
“Technology is not going away,” Hawkins said.
