Week 3, Thing 7

It was hard to decide on just one technology topic! A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky to receive a new MacBook from my school district, which I got to bring home and play with to get acquainted with over the summer. The district recently passed a bond fund for technology needs, and is "rolling out" "presentation systems" consisting of a MacBook, Elmo document camera, projector, and DVD player to each teacher. Altho my first two computers years ago were an Apple 2 Plus and a Mac, I've been living in a PC world for a long time now, and need to get back up to speed with Macs.

Well, my new MacBook is pretty cool! I've got a lot I haven't yet explored, but so far I love the Phone Booth, and can see that being a fun way to incorporate photos into both lessons and student assignments. And, the zoom in feature will be terrific when I'm giving a lesson using the computer and a projector and want to focus on something on the screen. You just move the cursor to where you want to zoom in, then press the option key, the apple key, and the + keys together to zoom in. You keep pressing those three keys together to zoom further and further. Then, to return to normal, you press the option key, the apple key, and the - keys to zoom out.