Colour-Coded Keyboards Handed Over to Grange Hill High School

Twenty (20) specially colour-coded computer keyboards were handed over to the Grange Hill High School in Westmoreland on Monday (Sept. 17), to be used as tools under a revolutionary project aimed at assisting students to develop speed in their typing skills.
The gift came from the Negril Educational and Environmental Trust (NEET), which was given permission by the Ministry of Education to run the project, which will operate as a pilot in 12 schools in Western Jamaica.
Grange Hill High school is the first institution to benefit through the programme.
Programme coodinator, Winston Wellington, said that the initiative should be up and running in the 12 selected schools within the next six months, with some schools receiving computers, while those that are already equipped with computers, would receive the colour-coded keyboards.
Member of NEET and instructor, Winthrop Wellington, told JIS News that the “project is a revolutionary way to learn how to use the keyboard and more importantly, how to use the computer. It uses a colour code learning system wherein the keys on the keyboard are covered with assorted colours relative to that of which you would colour your fingernails.”
“The idea behind this is to learn how to touch type, which is not looking at the keyboard but looking at the computer screen instead, from the initial stages of learning how to use the keyboard,” he explained.
He informed that the programme is designed as a 17-plan lesson schedule, and should take a student six to eight weeks to cover all the material, depending on their pace of learning and with constant practice.
Mr. Wellington expressed the view that young students, especially those who are being introduced to the computer for the first time, should adapt to the system quicker than students, who have already been introduced to other learning systems.
He pointed out that several teachers from the Grange Hill High School have been instructed in how to teach the system, noting that preparing tutors will be the first step embarked on before the system is introduced in any institution.
“I have given them (the teachers) lessons on how to properly implement this programme, how to properly teach the students how to use this programme, and it was very successful. It is the first time that they were seeing it and they were very impressed by the whole manner in which it was done,” he said.
Principal of the Grange Hill High School, Alton Ruddock, said he is elated at the introduction of the programme at the school, adding that it provides an excellent chance for all 1,900 students at the institution, even the very slow learners, to do well at information technology.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wellington stated that the NEET, in keeping with its motto of providing ‘A book in every child’s hand and a computer in every classroom’, will ensure that this revolutionary programme is introduced in every school across Jamaica.