Office and Administration - SECRETARY/PERSONAL ASSISTANT

Activity: Shorthand

Middle

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Literacy

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Critical and Creative Thinking

1. In pairs, you are going to create your own shorthand!

What to do:
Sick of typing? Here are some electronic chat room shorthands!!!

WTG = Way To Go!
ROFL = Rolling On Floor Laughing
OMG = Oh My Gosh
BRB = Be Right Back
G/G = Gotta Go
WB = Welcome Back
CUL8R = See You Later!
GMTA = Great Minds Think Alike
BBIAS = Be Back In A Sec!

2. Create More...

With your partner, see how many others you can create! Check with other pairs. How many shortcuts did you make altogether?

3. Compare and Contrast

Investigate the Pitman style of shorthand.

Compare this Pitman style to the electronic chat room shorthands. Which is easier? Which method can transcribe whole sentences?

4. Typing speed test.

With your partner timing you, time how quickly you can type "A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".  This sentence uses all the letters of the alphabet.

Swap over roles and time your partner. How did you both go? Practice over a week and repeat the activity. Did you improve your time and accuracy?

Dictation, Dictation, Dictation! How to develop this skill

Primary Middle  Secondary

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Personal and social capability
Australian Curriculum General Capability: Literacy

1. A good skill to learn is copying down accurately what another person is saying. This is dictation!

Hansard is the way Australian Parliament's debates are recorded.

Hansard's mission statement

To provide an accurate, substantially verbatim account of the proceedings of the parliament and its committees which, while usually correcting obvious mistakes, neither adds to nor detracts from the meaning of the speech or the illustration of the argument. (Source: Australian Parliament House)

To accurately copying down what people are saying as they are saying it is a great skill.

2. You are going to practice this skill by getting your partner to read from a picture book from the library - at reading pace. You will copy down the script and any comments they make as they read from the book.

Work out what is part of the text and what part is the added comments from your partner. Differentiate between these two in a way you understand.

3. Read back to your partner what you have written. Did you use any shortcuts to keep pace with the reading? How did you go? How accurate were you?

4. Repeat the process - swap places.

5. To practice individually, use a podcast! Don't be fooled by the following ones - they might be for  Ages 6+ but they can be fast paced!!!!

Off Track is an ABC offering combining sounds of nature with stories of wildlife. This podcast would be a good one to start with as it has breaks from the verbal content.

Short and Curly is another ABC podcast which asks children fun questions about ethics.

6. After you have tried several podcasts, and checked for accuracy, return to your partner and the picture book. You can try another picture book.

Check again for accuracy and then swap.

7.

Reflection.

How did you go?

How many podcasts did you have to practice on to achieve accuracy?

Were you distracted by the content and fail to write the words down?

Did you come across words you didn't know how to spell? Did that throw you? Did you later look up their meaning? [top marks if you did!]

Websites, Games & Apps

Fleksy - Typing App Cost: Free Developer: Fleksy Inc
Typing Master Middle  Secondary Australian Curriculum General Capability: Personal and social capability
Free Typing Games Middle  Secondary Australian Curriculum General Capability: Personal and social capability
Typing Games Middle  Secondary Australian Curriculum General Capability: Personal and social capability
Typing Test Middle  Secondary Australian Curriculum General Capability: Personal and social capability
Typing Test Middle  Secondary Australian Curriculum General Capability: Personal and social capability