Typing Course Mavis Beacon

[Albertina Drybread]

Theman who taught me to type was at least 100 years old at the time of my instruction. He wore thick, purple sunglasses that completely hid his eyes at all times. His long, white beard rippled as he traveled in a pink convertible through both time and space. This man was also, of course, animated.

Over time, typing education has evolved in tandem with both the progression of computer technology and the decreasing age at which students are exposed to that technology. Today, that age may be reaching its lowest limit, as standardized tests and metrics emphasize the need for exceedingly young learners to successfully navigate a computer.

And women were there to fill that role. Early Remington typewriters were marketed specifically to women; Wershler said the devices were modeled to look similar to the sewing machines of the era and were occasionally decorated with flowers. And so, the Peggy Olsons of the mid-20th century remained the keepers of the keyboard.

Some schools offered separate courses for business and personal typing, and there was a market for how-to books that provided aspiring typists with direction. After conversations with a number of people who learned to type around this time, though, it would seem that these relatively piecemeal approaches left aspiring typists with a lackluster education and a propensity to avoid touch typing. Instead, some Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers favor the hunt-and-peck method, which utilizes just two fingers and is vastly less efficient.

The growth of the personal computer increased the utility of knowing how to type, and this growth coincided with the burgeoning era of computer and video games. As giants like Atari cashed in on programs like Pong, and aspiring business professionals acknowledged the need to know how to operate a keyboard, the gamification of learning to type flowed naturally.

However, another key insight Worthington said helped ingratiate the Mavis Beacon software into the typing curriculum was that the product was more engaging than its competitors. Through product tests, Worthington and his team discovered that a key metric for predicting success in learning to type is simply time spent practicing. So if users were happier while spending time with the program, they were also more likely to succeed in learning the skill.

I type well enough to potter on MN , do emails and other stuff, but my typing is of the two main fingers variety; my job doesn't involve any typewritten/computer work.

However I am only working part time now, and would really like to gain some different skills as I'd like a change of job.

I'd like to be able to apply for call handler type jobs ( I have a proven track record of being able to handle difficult situations but not while typing at the same time!)

Can anyoe recommend a typing course? Preferable an online one, although I'd be open to attending an 'in person' one too.

Thanks!

The quick brown fox jumps quickly over the lazy dog

This uses every letter in the alphabet. Build your speed up typing this and keep bring your fingers back to:

Left hand - a s d f

Right hand - l k j h

I can touch type to an extent (enough to impress my patients as I type while talking to them!) but not 'properly' as my fingers aren't quite in the right positions and I make a fair few mistakes.

I used to use an online game/programme where you touch type along with it and it would tell you your typing speed.

I haven't done a course but when I was about 14 I took my sister's word processor and some random book and just started typing it out. Using the little bumps in the key of the G and H as a guide to find the centre of the keyboard without having to look and trying not to move my hands too much so all fingers were used.

It was surprisingly quick to pick it up and have been quite fast ever since. Have no idea of an official speed or how many mistakes I make but its been good enough that I've had comments on using all fingers and being fast.

I bet there's YouTube videos on what to do properly.

I learned online for free about ten years ago. There's bound to be loads of stuff online. Typing exercises that gradually teach you where the keys are which you then practice to build up your speed. It's so worth it. Such a time saver.

Use your thumbs for the space bar. Always start & keep your fingers over the four left and four right, middle pad. Move your index finger in left or right side to do the middle letters. The little fingers are used least, so the less common letters are more at the far left, right up and down on the keyboard.

I have to check for the numbers if using the top of the keyboard, but a year at Tesco before scanning means I can do a number keypad without looking.

There will be free stuff online.

At college I started typing aaaaa

Then adadadad to get your fingers used to the right keys, and so on. It's memory for the fingers and mind.

Same with the right hand.

Can type 75 wpm or more without looking. Would love to know how the machines in courts work!

I am a fast touch typist. I learned age 16, when I was VERY bored at a boyfriend's house and he had a CD Rom aimed at 6 to 9 year olds, to teach them to type. It was like a video game, where if you typed certain sequences/words you got a fountain to go up high or your character successfully swam across something-very basic educational technology! I wish I could remember what it was called but alas I cannot. Wonder if there's anything like that about now?

I was taught which fingers to use for which keys (google it), then I sat down with a favourite book and typed it out. By about halfway through my fingers had mastered it. That was nearly 40 years ago (on a massive old office typewriter!) and it's the most useful thing I've ever done.

Yay to Mavis! I learnt aged about 14 way back in about 1994 from a floppy disc of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing! It had the car racing game and game with a booklet of letters you had to type out as quickly and as accurately as possible without looking at your fingers. And the shopping game for typing numbers on the number keypad! ?

No, the most mysterious thing about Mavis Beacon is how she remains the go-to answer for an infrequently asked but rather compelling trivia question: Who is the most famous fictional black woman in video game history?

And so it goes. The banter was somewhat comical, but the larger point certainly isn't: black women are massively underrepresented in a medium that has produced at least a handful of notable examples of nearly every other conceivable population group.

Critical race and gender theorists place black women at the "intersection" of racism, sexism, and many other forms of bigotry. As a result of these intersecting forms of oppression, scholars such as Kimberl Crenshaw argue that black women occupy a subordinate status totally lacking the privileges afforded to men, caucasians and other members of various dominant social groups.

"How many African-American females are involved in computer programming?" asked a colleague of mine who studies the history of gender, race, and ethnicity. "Surely not many. And while I don't know anything at all about video games, I would guess there aren't many African-American women producing or creating those, either."

There are grassroots movements afoot to remedy these glaring deficiencies, non-profit tech education groups such as Black Girls Code and ScriptEd, but this doesn't change the fact that individuals hoping to play a black female character will have to go to such lengths as selecting the Redguard race in The Elder Scrolls and creating her from scratch.

My mother, a schoolteacher herself, had seen her doctoral studies slowed by an inability to type, and the decision to purchase a family PC turned almost entirely on her desire to force me to "play" untold hours of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. She also mandated my enrollment in an array of vocational courses centered on typing and data processing activities, all of which were taught by the aforementioned Beacon lookalike.

My mother's effort yielded two notable results: I became an exceptionally fast typist and the countenance of Mavis Beacon, prim and proper and letter-perfect on those oversized software boxes we never discarded, became seared into my memory as the computer teacher. When I imagine the instructor of any online course, it is Beacon who comes first and fastest to mind. I can't help myself; she was always there, urging me past the 100 words-per-minute barrier.

In the United States, the justification for affirmative action programs is frequently challenged: Shouldn't the "land of liberty" be a colorblind society, with race playing no part whatsoever in hiring and promotion decisions? But role assignments matter, as do the role models who fill them. The frequent casting of Morgan Freeman, Keith David, and Dennis Haysbert as presidents and generals (David, for example, voices Admiral Anderson in the Mass Effect series) is sometimes lampooned, but surely these decisions, even those made by non-black creators, had some slight yet non-negligible impact on the election of Barack Obama in 2008.

If something is seen often enough, it becomes easier to believe. The under-representation of women in gaming, both as characters and as participants, has begun to remedy itself. Such a development amounts to a virtuous circle, a feedback loop that in this case has gradually but continuously reinforced itself.

Mavis Beacon was an iconic outlier, but she also remains the quintessential virtual teacher. The conceptualization of similarly unforgettable black female video game characters, each more vibrant and relatable than the last, appears inevitable as the gaming industry becomes more inclusive with the passage of time. As gaming develops into a field of entertainment encompassing everybody, it will surely begin to properly represent all of us, too.

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