What a nice way to start my day!

Walked into my office this morning and discovered... a new computer system! Complete with monitor, keyboard, docking station, and removable laptop! And a new computer bag with all necessary travel stuff! Way cool!

Now I am itching to play with it but have to teach a class first. It's a keyboarding class, though, so my job is to spend a lot of time during the first week of classes to make sure students learn all appropriate techniques; after that, I am just monitoring and correcting if necessary. Because I don't like looming behind my students' backs and make them nervous, I usually find a strategic point where I can see most students and discreetly observe them. From time to time, I do walk around and make sure everybody is doing fine. Keyboarding Pro is a very nice program and requires minimal instructional efforts, so it's better not to interfere too much.

Of course, I will actively teach again in two weeks once we start formatting business documents. Usually, I model basic skills, answer questions, and then observe students and correct when necessary. This approach seems to be working for most of my students. One of my colleagues talks the entire class time and students hate that -- why would you want to do every... single... exercise... in a book as a class? One example is fine, just to give them a taste. Then off to hands on practice and discovering just how that stuff works. And I don't like doing things for students. If they have a question, I ask questions, too, gently guiding them to a solution. I maintain "hands off keyboard" policy whenever possible.

Anybody else teaching Keyboarding? I would love to hear about your approaches.