Megan (jehoshabeath) wrote,

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qst de w1aw - now 5 wpm

This morning, I am spending some time with W1AW. Well, with W1AW's online code practice files. It's time to practice copying code at 5 wpm!

I was surprised to find that it was harder than I expected at first. 5 wpm is the slowest you can get, but I was still caught up on a couple letters and punctuation. Since I've been practicing the past three days, it has been getting easier. Most of the time, I am right on track with the message, but every so often a wrench gets thrown in the gears and I hit something that trips me up. But I will persevere. It is just one of those things that requires time and devotion (in other words, practice). No doubt, soon I will breeze through the 5 wpm files and wonder why they were ever so hard.

This experience makes me wonder how the brain actually works in acquiring new knowledge. Suddenly, there is new information there and that information needs to associate and translate from sound to character recognition to written letters on paper. It's weird, because a few years ago when I was poking at code, I tried copying directly to the keyboard and I found it much easier. At the same time, when I tried to write the letters down on paper, I found that I couldn't do it nearly as fast. I found that the association I was making was straight from the sound to the location of the key. I wasn't really aware of what letter it was. Maybe this is why video games are easier for me than this. In any case, I've been copying to paper to be sure that I am actually connecting the concept of the letter to the sound. It makes the process slower and harder, but I think that means that my mind is processing more.
Tags: cw
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