Will typing on an iPad virtual keyboard make me less proficient in typing on a traditional keyboard?

You will still be able to type. I'm old fashioned. I prefer to have my punctuation handy, not on a different screen. So I prefer a real keyboard and not the onscreen one.

Your teacher may have a point, to a degree. But I doubt typing on a screen will prevent you from typing on a real keyboard.

You may get rusty but it comes right back. Three tips, hold the coma and you'll get a apostrophe mark. Hold the period and you'll get a quotation mark. At the end of a sentence double the home bar and you get a period and a space.

Above should read; hold the comma, and double tap the home space bar.

I'll get it right, double tap the space bar.

I often find that when I type at a computer, I automatically use some of the shortcuts available on the iPad, e.g. double space to enter a full stop, or "hes" instead of "he's", and I have to go back and correct them.

For that reason I prefer to type the apostrophes myself using the shortcut suggested by bobseufert, so that I don't get into that habit. Unfortunately autocorrect down't like that, and messes with them, e.g. turns "it's not" into "it' snot".

There's nothing stopping you getting a Bluetooth keyboard and using that. I think a full size one will work (can anyone confirm?) and then typing will be exactly the same as on a computer.

Aloha pshute, Typing it' snot made me turn auto-correction off. Bob.

bobseufert wrote:

Aloha pshute, Typing it' snot made me turn auto-correction off. Bob.

I tried that too, but it's very useful for correcting the errors made by hitting a key beside the one intended, which is pretty easy to do if you're trying to touch type on it. Aparently that's what you're supposed to do, and just trust the autocorrect to fix it all.