# Touch Typing: a 21st Century Skill

By [Continuations](https://continuations.com) · 2009-12-01

education

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This morning I am meeting with the principal at our kids’ elementary school.  I am hoping to convince him that touch typing is more important for the kids to learn than good hand writing.  When I look at my total output these days, a tiny fraction of it involves pen and paper.  But I do write a lot every day on a computer keyboard.

I find that writing blog posts, answering emails, putting together presentations (and most of all coding) all benefit greatly from my ability to touch type.  I did not learn it in school in Germany, but lucked out when I came to the States and had my host family there suggest that it would be a useful skill (I learned on an IBM Correcting [Selectric](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric_typewriter) type writer, the one with the ball head).

It is of course conceivable that keyboard input too will become antiquated.  I grant that possibility, but until then, touch typing is amazingly useful.  There are now a number of free learning to type programs online.  The one that looks best is [TypingWeb](http://www.typingweb.com), although I would love to find one that was more like a video game.

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*Originally published on [Continuations](https://continuations.com/touch-typing-a-21st-century-skill)*