This keyboard shown at the recent Toy Fair uses a default ‘ABCDEF’ format. That’s right, not ‘QWERTY’ . Although, QWERTY is available on the keyboard, it’s not the default. This may not be a completely bad idea, because there’s no real reason that we need to learn how to type with the keys in the order that they are on a keyboard. But, if you teach your kid to type on this and the world doesn’t magically switch to that format then they’re screwed.
Get it?
The HUGE problem I have with this keyboard is that on the row where the function buttons reside are what I guess you could call ‘common net-speak abbreviations’. Below the picture gets rant-y.
Yes, that is a ‘LOL’ key and a ‘L8R’ key (you probably thought how could it get worse than ‘LOL’ and then BAM!). So not only do they want your children to learn how to type on a non-standard keyboard, they’re suggesting that people who do know how to type should use this for quick access to something that’s already shortening the ‘grueling process’ of actually typing out words. I honestly hate this keyboard for this. We don’t need to teach people, especially children or young adults, to use abbreviations like this. More and more kids are using them in their school work and soon enough people are just going to speak in them as well. All hope for the English language may be lost.
