Keyboarding, like riding a bicycle, is a muscle-memory skill. Do we teach children to ride a bicycle in sporadic sessions spread over 6 years? No way, they learn HOW fast and, then, pedall off into the “real” world to practice until it becomes automatic. How can they build muscle memory if they pick up keyboarding instruction an, then, put it down for weeks at a time? How can they build muscle memory if they have to revert to two fingers to do their “real” computer work between the sporadic sessions?

I learned keyboarding at school and got a job as a junior stenographer in a bank, I used the keyboard, heaps. I was soon keyboarding automatically without thinking about it. Funny, I didn’t note or celebrate this keyboarding milestone; it just happened. Recently, Joe in the US ”did” the left side and exercises but, busy at work, stopped. To his amazement, he found his left fingers were automatically finding the keys. He’d “got it” and didn’t know it.

Common Core Standards require 4th Graders to type a single page in one sitting. To do this, they need to be relaxed and confident about keyboarding, not struggling to find the keys. Children learn best in authentic situations, what better than to learn the keyboard fast and, then, use their “real” computer work to practice? A drastic change to the way students learn keyboarding is due right now.

Why can’t I work in between these outings? If I am going out in the morning, I seem to fill up the time before I go with inconsequential things and, usually, end up rushing at the last minute. I have been known to throw my lipstick and jewellery into my bag to put on later. If I get home in the afternoon, I feel more like taking Tommy for a walk than sitting down at the computer and THINKING! And, then, I meet doggie friends and end up staying out a lot longer than the planned hour. Tommy loves it, of course.

I have to practice focusing on one thing at a time, then, I could get heaps done, no distractions. Tommy could teach me a thing or two, he has the focus thing down pat, particularly when I dangle a piece of chicken in front of him, his eyes never leave the chicken, he has only one thing on his mind until he gets that chicken! That is how I must be, no detouring this way and that, no reading the lead stories on Yahoo, checking emails, checking Twitter, they all lead to me getting absorbed in other things.

What are those things they put on horses in a race to stop them looking to the left or right, blinkers? I need blinkers, but will make do with saying aloud to myself “focus, focus, focus”. That will work. Next, take keyboarding off the curriculum.

I first met Merilyn aboard the TSS “Fairstar” on a voyage to England, the same voyage she met her darling husband, Sammy, a handsome Italian steward. We were young and the world was our oyster. I was travelling with Ros, we had both just resigned from the shipping company, Sitmar Line, to travel overseas. Our cabin mate, Diane met Merilyn at the ship’s rail farewelling family and friends as the ship pulled away from our home town of Melbourne.

Diane arranged to meet Merilyn for a drink before dinner the first night out and Ros and I and our fourth cabin mate, Marilyn, went along too.  Merilyn introduced us to one of her cabin mates, Sue, she had known Sue for years, but had no idea she was travelling on the same ship, let alone in the same cabin. We all became firm friends and remained friends to this day, thanks to Merilyn, she was the glue that held us together. She organized every six-month reunion night out we had, that’s a lot of reunion nights and never said to any of us “ít’s your turn”.

I have a twin sister and I am very much into “I did the dishes last night, it’s your turn tonight”, “your piece of cake is bigger than mine”, “we’ll toss a coin to work this out”. Not Merilyn! Ros, Merilyn and I shared a tent on a Kontiki camping trip to Russia. At the time, Ros and I smoked and, after a long bus trip not smoking, the first thing we did when we arrived at each night’s camp site was have a cigarette. Merilyn didn’t smoke and had our tent put up before we had put our cigarettes out. She did this every night of the trip and never complained that it was our turn. That was Merilyn.

Merilyn also had a prodigious memory, she would associate events and dates to other events and dates. She could be totally relied on to come up with whatever information we wanted in a flash. She loved animals, she loved to talk, she loved to eat out, she loved life, a wonderful friend.

The very first school didn’t answer even though it was way past their advertised opening hour, a short-lived reprieve. My next call, answered by the school receptionist, was pure gold. I threw myself on her mercy, I am cold calling for the first time, she was lovely and told me to ring Assistant Principals, they are involved in everything at schools. I remembered a couple of years ago I did deal with the AP at the school around the corner from my place. Yes, Yes, Yes, I now know who to ask for, invaluable information.

To the internet, search for “primary school Assistant Principal”, I rang the first one. Who’s calling please? Georgina Farmer from Nail It Now. I could almost hear her thinking “who is this person, should I put her through?” Then, to my relief, one moment please and I was through to the AP, off I went into my honest spiele. A nice response “you have chosen to ring on the first day back after 2 weeks break, I have assembly in 5 minutes, I am interested to hear what you have to say, please ring back at 2 pm”.

In all, I rang 23 schools, with varied responses. I got the best responses if I actually got through to the AP, they were pleasant and, I think, a little interested, some more so, but you’ll never guess what they all wanted me to do, send them an email. It’s so funny. Sending emails is easy, it’s what I have been doing until I plucked up courage to cold call, ironic that I have to get brave to cold call and they ask me for emails.

I have to say it wasn’t a terrifying experience, but there are heaps of other marketing things I would rather do. Next, a wonderful gutsy friend.

I am excited and keen, it’s taken me a long time to get to this point and I am so looking forward to the journey. I know there will be bumps along the way, but I will sail blithely over them, nothing is going to dishearten me, I will just keep going, full steam ahead. I have the product, elementary schools need it right now and I am going to give it to them, and keep a ship’s blog along the way.

There are so many diverse industries that would benefit from the Nail It Now keyboarding method, why am I particularly focusing on education when the medical, engineering, business industries have so much more money available? Adults can cope with the repetitive random letter typing of traditional software programs, young children can’t, they need fun, meaningful and their individual differences catered for.

I have also packed a half-finished schedule to make the most of my working time, it’s so easy to get distracted, something exciting online, “real” life interruptions that can be done at another time and my Tommy with big brown eyes and Mr Squeaky in his mouth, Mr Squeaky his favorite toy.

I write and think best in the horizontal, so early mornings from 7 am to 9.30 am in bed writing blog posts, Twitter tweets, articles, whatever, a cup of tea at hand and Tommy at my feet, a lovely, cosy place to be with winter looming in Melbourne, I think. At 9.30 am, the ABC weather forecast to plan my afternoon Tommy walk, then, “real” stuff, shower, breakfast, brush teeth, mine and Tommy’s, check diary, pay a pressing bill, make phone calls, etc. This all takes 2 hours, then, back to work.

I haven’t planned any further. I still have to schedule time for answering emails, reading interesting stuff I find online, get the hang of Twitter, blogging, FaceBook, LinkedIn, I bought these large foolscap-sized plastic envelopes and they are choc-a-bloc with information about these social media activities, I also want to submit articles to various article sites and I mustn’t forget the dreaded cold calling. My darling niece, Danielle’s husband, Simon is a real estate agent and, when times are slack, he makes 30 cold calls a day, good on him. something for me to aspire to and, if I do it often enough, I may find it easy, ha, ha. Next, who said cold calling is terrifying?

To cut a long story short, last June, I had open heart surgery to repair my ascending aorta blood vessel with Dakron, men’s shirt material of all things and, now, if the CT scan showed either the descending or stomach sections of the aorta had enlarged to 6 cm, back to hospital for a further operation or two go I.

It’s not that I was worried about having the operations or going to hospital, I actually had fun last time and I am a fatalist, I get myself to the hospital and the medical experts take over. I am in their hands totally and utterly and they are capable hands.

No, I was worried about how long it took me to recover, It was a pleasant recovery, with lots of walking and siestas, but it was time consuming. I just don’t have the time, I am raring to get on the marketing road, the time is now, Grade 4 students are required by the new Common Core Standards to keyboard a single page at one sitting easily and confidently. To do this, they need the Nail It Now keyboarding method and I have to get the word out.

Now that I have been reprieved, at least for 12 months, I am ready to go, go, go on the journey of an idea that could revolutionize the teaching of keyboarding in elementary schools. Next, wish me “Bon Voyage”.

In the excitement of buying a new computer, I didn’t give much thought to the masses of stuff on my old computer, what to do with it all, there was so much I still needed and couldn’t do without, no time to go through it all and prune. Coincidentally, friends, Pam and Greg, bought the same HP computer at the same store the day before I did and they came to my rescue. They introduced me to Uri, a computer guru who charged a flat $150 for old to new computer transfers of data, he came with their high recommendation.

Uri brought Ian with him, Ian is Scottish and in training, these two charming guys turned up in an old red car they referred to as the Ferarri and got to work, no fuss or bother. Uri’s goal was simple, to make the transition from my old computer to new as smooth as possible, with as few hiccups as possible. He said I should expect my new computer to have different formats and ways of doing things, especially after 9 years and, when finished, he was happy to hang around to answer any questions I had, he also offered a month’s free support. What more could I ask?

Pam and Greg’s “Uri transition” took 2 hours, their old computer much younger than 9 years, mine took 4 hours and, still, Uri was cheery and determined to solve any problem that reared its head. Just fantastic. He really went through hoops to do what he said he would do, going way beyond the call of duty, almost unheard of these days, and I got a seamless transition from an ancient computer, in today’s terms, to a new computer. Next, relief is a wonderful feeling.

Wikipedia defines a blog (a portmanteau of the term web log) as a personal journal published on the world wide web consisting of discrete entries (“posts”) typically displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first. The word “portmanteau” sent me scuttling to Wikipedia, doesn’t it mean suitcase? It does, but it also means two meanings packed up into one word, web and log into blog.

Writing the stories has been a great eye opener, they have made me delve deeply into my keyboarding method and how it compares to other methods. I have learned a lot, particularly the pros of the Nail It Now keyboarding method as the easiest way to teach keyboarding. Now, I am as ready as I will ever be to start my journey, I am running a little bit later than envisaged, but I am more than ready. Next, they jumped through hoops.

Why do they still “hunt and peck” in Grade 4. Most educators seem to accept that learning to keyboard is a long, drawn-out business. As proof of this, check out the curriculum of students in Grades 1-6. Keyboarding instruction is scattered sporadically throughout these grades. Why, why, why are they still learning and practising keyboarding in Grades 4-6?

School districts will have to look closely at current keyboarding instruction, particularly at what isn’t working and what could work if given a go and this may just open the door for my innovative keyboarding method

Keyboarding should be automatic, no thinking about it. It’s a muscle-memory skill, it must be learned quickly and, then, practised consistently and continually to achieve automaticity. For some, this happens more quickly than others. A customer recently “did” the left side and exercises but, busy at work, stopped. To his amazement, he found his left fingers were automatically finding the keys. He’d “got it” and didn’t know it. Others take longer, but it happens and, when it does, it’s thrilling and you are set for life. You will never lose your keyboarding skill.

Sporadic teaching just won’t work. The more computer work students do, the faster they keyboard, how rewarding, and the more they keyboard, the sooner it becomes automatic. Next, I am ready to start blogging properly.

You should always strike while the iron is hot, just do it, nail it now! For goodness sake, Nail It Now is my business name and, if I had opened a Twitter account when I first thought of it, I may have gotten @nailitnow as my Twitter handle, instead, I am nailitnow1, och well, this will serve to remind me to do things promptly. It took me just as long to open the account and set it up this week as it would have earlier. I don’t know what I was waiting for, smack, smack.

The same thing happened, or should I say didn’t happen, with my domain name. I always knew I should buy nailitnow.com, it was available, it was my business name, but I didn’t. I dithered and dathered and someone else beat me to it and you’ll never guess what industry they were in. Yep, the porn industry, I couldn’t believe it. Luckily, they didn’t keep it for too long and, now, it’s up for grabs again, at 6,000 times the earlier price.

The next first was very exciting. I received an email saying “Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) is now following you on Twitter!” Vicki Davis is someone I have admired from afar for a long time. She teaches fifth grade and has embraced technology like no-one else I know. She has made 23,705 tweets and has 31,616 followers, soon to be 31,617 followers when I work out how to do it.

I corresponded with Vicki years ago and I remember her asking me at the time “do you blog?”. Well, now I do but, again, it has taken me ages to get around to it. I am dying of curiosity as to how she found me and what prompted her to follow me, but I don’t think you greet a new follower with the words “why are you following me?”, it’s more something you would say to a stalker.

My first tweet was “Is an education marketing journey an interesting story or is it only interesting at the end when I am successful (ho hum, boring, same old?)”.

On another note, I cleaned Tommy’s teeth for the first time. Tommy is my just turned 9-year-old feisty Australian Terrier, he has attitude, he totally pleases himself instead of me and I adore him. How would he take to me putting a toothbrush in his mouth? It’s covered in chicken toothpaste, that might help. Well, let’s say he liked the toothpaste and kind of put up with me brushing his teeth until he had eaten all the toothpaste. Slowly, slowly does it. Next, Common Core Standards must open door.

I am a doer and impatient. When I get something new, I don’t want to spend hours working out all the ins and outs, I just want to do it or use it. And this was my attitude to WordPress, the great program I use for my blog. Basically, I took the time to work out how to set it up on my site, choose a theme and write posts and that’s about it. There is so much more to WordPress that that, but I ignored it all . . . to my cost.

Almost straightaway, I started receiving emails notifying me about comments made on my blogs. Initially, I was excited and, then, I realized it was all spam, the same comment over and over. I got so fed up with them, I turned off the comment email notification option. Wrong, this didn’t stop them coming, they came behind my back day and night until, eventually, I had over 50,000.

I used to be someone who tackled stuff when it starts to happen, a “stitch in time saves nine” person but, since I started working for myself (sigh), things have changed, I have 987 emails in my In box that need pruning, To Do baskets overflowing, I have one for my “real” life and one for Nail It Now and, now, 50,000 odd comments to delete. If I ignore them long enough, they just might go away! As if.

Today, I am going to tackle the 50,000 comments, I googled “bulk delete WordPress comments” and, apparently, there’s a plugin. I added plugin to my search and voila, I hit the jackpot, a beautiful simple plugin called “Bulk comment removal”.

I clicked “Download Version 1″, unzipped the Bulk_Comment_Removal.php and readme.txt files and uploaded them to my WordPress/wp-content/plugins directory. I, then, checked Plugins and  Bulk Remove Pending Comments on my blog dashboard and hit Activate.

Now, all I have to do to remove spam comments is go to Tools on my blog dashboard and click Bulk Remove Comments. Then, I check the Remove all pending comments box and click the Remove button. Beautiful!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you Mike Strand, he is the genius who created this wonderful plugin and this is his web site. Next, a week of firsts.

Does anyone like receiving sales calls? Not me, they intrude into your life, they interrupt what you are doing and they invade your privacy. So why am I contemplating cold calling people who I am sure feel the same way as I do about sales calls? Well, I have to think about what really annoys me and be different. I could be honest and upfront about why I am calling, that would be different. I could make them laugh, that would be different. I could get off the line at the first hint that they want to go, that would be different. Perhaps, I could ask questions I would love an answer to.

Keyboarding is a vital skill to teach children, yet, it’s not clear-cut, there are so many questions: Why has there been so much debate about when to start keyboarding instruction in elementary schools? Why do school web sites display lots of keyboarding tutors for students and parents to choose from and not just one? Why do Grades 1-2 play “familiarization” games? Why have so many grown-ups tried to learn keyboarding and given up?

Could the answer to most of these questions have anything to do with the fact that the repetitive random letter typing of traditional software programs is boring and frustrating for grownups, let alone young children. I intend to find out. Next, I digress and take a tiny detour to express joy and appreciation for a beautiful plug-in I found online.

First, the keyboard is split in two, we mentally do this every time we type left-hand and right-hand letters, the children learn one side at a time, 15 keys instead of 30, much easier. Then, one simple home row sentence and five up and down association words for each side and the children have learned the keyboard and correct finger use in under 2 hours. Within 5 minutes, children type 9 words without looking at the keyboard, “Wow, I can do this”.

The Nail It Now practice words contain regularly-repeated letters, bee, beech, beef, been, beep, fantastic for keyboarding practice, and children do all their keyboarding in Microsoft Word, as they would in “real” life. Children learn best in authentic situations.

Everything is simple and flexible. If families don’t have a computer at home, they can use a computer at a public library, their grandparents’ home, a friend’s place, even a cardboard keyboard.

The keyboard and association words can be revised aloud whenever families have a spare few minutes, at the kitchen table, walking the dog, in a traffic jam. A teacher recently reported “It went nicely, the children have been walking around saying “Animals in the snow dig for food” like a chant. It is very sweet”. This flexibility suits varying family circumstances.

From this point on, the children do their daily “real” computer work without looking at the keyboard. If the whole family learns together, we recommend covering the keys with “glue dots”. Parents color the F and J dots so children know where to place their fingers on the home keys.

Parents, you can download the children’s LEFT side pdf document online, at no cost, to “try before you buy”. Next, so many keyboarding questions.

Keyboarding is a muscle-memory skill like riding a bicycle and should be taught the same way. Learn HOW fast and, then, PRACTICE in the “real” world. PRACTICE the Nail It Now way means opening Microsoft Word (or any other word processing program) and typing words with regularly-repeated letters, bee, beech, beef, been, beep, fantastic for keyboarding practice, much better than practicing “locked” in keyboarding software programs typing words made up by software companies. Typing in Microsoft Word as we would in “real” life is so much more flexible than a software program.

We all like instant rewards, particularly in this day and age, and the rewards along the keyboard practice way are many, even keyboarding without looking at the keys is exciting after many years frustratingly “hunting and pecking, then keyboarding faster and faster, more excitement and, before you know it, keyboarding automatically without thinking about it, the ultimate reward. Next, cursive AND keyboarding, why not?

Two-finger keyboarding is all very well for people who type short snappy messages, but what about professional people, solicitors, doctors, dentists and older students who need to type long reports? They must experience a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs at the thought of how frustrating this will be and how long it will take but, apparently, this is preferable to learning to touch type.

There are 3 rows of 10 keys on the keyboard, orderly and neat, it’s the letters themselves that strike fear in the heart, they just don’t make any sense.

Dividing the keyboard into two sides makes it easier, we mentally do this every time we type left-hand and right-hand letters. Then, we have 3 rows of 5 keys, home, top and bottom rows. We have 4 fingers on our LEFT hand and there are 4 Home row keys, ASDF. OK, type ASDF and say aloud “Animals in the Snow Dig for Food” 10 times. Now, type add, as, dad, fad, gad, gag gas. “Wowee, I can do this”

The F finger does double the work and moves over to G. “Animals in the Snow Dig for Food like grass”. Then, 5 up and down association words like Food Raw Vegetables and you have learned the whole LEFT side of the keyboard is around 35 minutes. Fantastic!

Keyboarding should be split into two distinct parts, learning HOW to do it should be fast and PRACTICE done in the “real” world. The mistake keyboarding software companies make is teaching only 2-4 letters at a time, it takes forever to learn the whole keyboard and what do users do between lessons? They type their daily “real” computer work with two fingers and could easily forget everything they just learned, much better to learn the whole keyboard fast and, then, use your “real” work to practice.

With a bit of lateral thinking, learning the keyboard and correct finger use is easy. Next, practice is harder, but the rewards are many

After quite a few attempts riding around the local supermarket car park, it was a Sunday and empty of cars, Dad surreptiously removed his support. When I realized I was doing it on my own, “wow, I can do this”, confidence flowed and I went from strength to strength. It was all positive stuff.

The teaching of keyboarding in schools today is quite different. Learning HOW is not fast, repetitively typing random letters over and over to remember them is boring, learning 2-4 keys at a time takes forever and has anyone given any thought to the fact that, between lessons, students have to revert to using two fingers to do their daily “real” computer work and could easily forget everything they just learned.

Students then practice in sporadic keyboarding software sessions over several years, it would be a really interesting exercise to actually count the number of keyboarding instruction hours a student puts in at school, the whole time isolated in a software program, starting in Grades 1-3 when students play ”familiarity” keyboarding games.

It’s the continual and constant “doing” of keyboarding that builds the muscle memory required for students to keyboard automatically without thinking about it. Once a student has “got it”, it won’t go away, like knowing how to ride a bicycle, it comes back to you even if you haven’t done it for years. How good is that?

Currently, students don’t continually “do” keyboarding, their practice in software programs is constantly interrupted by having to type their “real” daily computer work with two fingers. Next, learning the keyboard is the easy part.

I would go so far as to say, if you have good keyboarding skills, you should never be out-of-work.

Check out my Jobs page, I will continue to update it. Next, keyboarding is like riding a bicycle.

LMIs (like-minded individuals) is an expression I picked up from my ex-boss, at the time a Director of McKinsey & Company, Clem Doherty. I love this way of describing people who think like you do. My LMI page will feature individuals who don’t know me or my keyboarding method, but care enough about keyboarding in elementary schools to ask questions, comment in forums and, I am sure, speak out in their own school districts and communities. Most admit it’s an uphill battle. Check out my LMIs page. Next so many jobs require keyboarding skills

Next, keyboarding LMIs.