I've been using a Mac for 16 years but I'M LEARNING STUFF with TeachMac. Just picking up a few little tricks can really help speed things up. My mailboxes sort themselves, thanks to the Mail module; I learned some handy tips about highlighting text in “Getting the Most”, and I’ve learned how to really use iTunes with the iTunes modules. I can’t believe I was typing in track names-- in the time it took to get 3 CDs in, I now have my entire CD library in iTunes.
-Gary, Artist
Arcata, California

I have been using TeachMac to learn about my G5 iMac computer. Previously I struggled with Windows just like almost everyone else. The Mac is less complicated in almost every way, but learning your way around the programs to find everything you want to do can be difficult with anything new. Here’s just some of the things I have found out using Teachmac Modules.

I just got a new job where I must check e-mail several times a day. “Getting the Most vol. 1” showed me how to mark all my work e-mails red so they stand out easily. You can go further and create a smart mailbox to grab all your work e-mail and put it on top of your e-mail stack.

'Tiger for students' taught me to set my screen saver for news headlines from the BBC World Service. Just press one key (listed under the story) and my browser launches directly to the story. There are many media choices from tv, print , and web sources.

I now have a dictionary/thesaurus, US white pages, US yellow pages , the local six day weather forecast , and a web radio tuner for stations all over the world on my Dashboard after learning to modify the dashboard with TeachMac.
-Kathleen, Teacher
Grass Valley, California

It took me a while and a bit of research on the website to grasp the full potential of TeachMac, but now I am hooked. First, I got addicted to “TeachMac Tuesday;” it’s so well done and it’s great to go over the basics like that and learn new tricks on the fly, even as an advanced user. *Especially* as an advanced user. I’ve checked out all the modules that are up so far, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of them soon. I want to do some myself one of these days. What’s cool about the modular arcitecture is you can do a quick search and just view the segment you need. It combines the power of screencasting with the flexible searchability of text. The video segments are very short, so you get to what you want to look at right away. There are some excellent screencasts out there, and those have their place as well of course. But TeachMac is *designed* for teaching and learning. It is excellent for the basics, but it will really shine when it comes to more complex things, say in Pro applications. Since anyone can contribute, TeachMac--like the Wikipedia--dissolves the difference between student and teacher. You can be an expert screencaster and module writer for one kind of app, and learn new tricks about another. It is a powerful learning and teaching environment that would be highly useful regardless of the complexity of the content.

I absolutely love TeachMac Tuesday, it's such a great idea. Even though I consider myself a power user and have had a Mac for almost 20 years now, the tip from last week, for example, for creating smart folders to help clean up folder clutter was an epiphany. All the modules so far are extremely well done and I learn something about my Mac from every one of them. However, the best thing I have learned so far is how to explain things simply so someone who is new to the Mac, or less experienced will understand. Because I have worked with a Mac for so long (I’ve never had a Windows machine), it feels sometimes like explaining how to walk. I look forward to producing my own modules and to improve my ability to show others what a great operating system Mac OS X really is.

Jeanne, University Professor
Dortmund, Germany