Folks in the district are looking at ways to assess sixth graders' keyboarding ability. This will determine their placement in a middle school computer literacy class. This is considered to be a summative assessment of keyboarding skills.
I have developed a very basic test that might be considered as formative assessment. The proctor sets a timer for 30 seconds and instructs each student to type his or her name for 30 seconds. That is the warmup, since everyone's name is various length. But, the proctor records whether the student used both hands or not and whether their posture was in good form.
Next, the students are told to type the row of numbers just above the letters. After they type 1 through 9 and Enter/Return the proctor counts the number of lines typed in 30 seconds. This score can be compared between students and groups of students. A video camera might be used to record the posture and hand position of the students.
This method is free and easy for anyone to administer in class by a teacher, paraeducator or volunteer. We might collect enough data to develop standards for each grade level, grades 1 through 5. What are your thoughts?
Monday, January 18, 2010
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