Taking control of your Mac computer starts with taking control of your Control Center. Let's get into it. On the Mac desktop, on the upper right-hand side, you will find an icon that looks like this. If you don't see this icon, that means your computer needs an update, and I would encourage you to reach out to your building IT for support.

Upon selecting this icon, you'll find numerous features that you can turn on or off. For example, I can simply turn off the Wi-Fi or turn it back on. Blue means it's turned on, and white means it's turned off. Alternatively, you can select the Wi-Fi and see more features within that category. You can do the same with Bluetooth; you can simply turn it off and then turn it back on, or click on the arrow and see different Bluetooth devices.

Control Center is an easy-access feature that allows you to access common features quickly. You can find these same features by simply going to the Apple icon, scrolling down to System Settings, and there we go, there's the popup. Simply find the feature you're looking for, like the Bluetooth, there it is, or like the Wi-Fi. But Control Center is faster, quicker, and better than just simply searching the system settings. However, Control Center doesn't have everything, so you still need to know how to access System Settings.

So now you know that you can turn off and turn on, you can simply select the category and you'll find more additional settings within them. But did you know you can simply select and drag them up to your menu bar for even faster access? You can do this with any settings on the Control Center. Let's do it with the Bluetooth settings. All I have to do is select it and then drag it up to my menu bar. And just like Control Center, if I select it, I find those additional features. If I go straight to Bluetooth, there they are as well. So it's an even faster way of accessing features that you, as a teacher or student, use a lot.

So most commonly when I help set up laptops for teachers and students, I always put Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Airdrop up there, as well as screen mirroring. Screen mirroring is the feature where you will connect to Apple TV or wireless displays. I also enable sound. You might be confused why sound? Well, as for keyboard shortcuts, turning up may be too loud or turning down may be too quiet. The sound feature allows you to get precise levels of sound wherever you want it.

Control Center has many features, but I also want to show you another way you can put these up as well. And that is, of course, going to the Apple and selecting System Settings. Let's zoom into this popup. Here, I'm going to type Control Center to get quick access to the Control Center, or I can simply scroll down and find Control Center. It will bring me to the same screen. Here at this popup, I can also have the option to say, 'Hey, I want it to show in the menu bar,' and it will appear in the menu bar. Let me zoom out so that you can see what I'm doing. So here is the menu bar. I want Bluetooth to not appear, and Bluetooth just disappeared. Okay, actually, I changed my mind, I do want it there, and Bluetooth will reappear.

But there's a faster way to take them off from the menu bar as well. And you can do this by simply pressing the Command key, selecting the feature you don't want anymore, and then drag until you see the 'X' and then let it go. That is it. And again, you can go back to the Bluetooth and say I want it to show, you can do so in the system settings or in the Control Center by simply dragging and then letting it go in the menu bar.

Screen mirroring is amazing; it's how you can connect to your Apple TVs. If you scroll down in the system settings, you'll have additional features like I want a battery to not just be in my menu bar but I also want it to appear in my Control Center. And so that's how you get additional features in your Control Center by first accessing system settings. One of the options I always engage when I set up teachers is this feature, 'Show percentage.' It's amazing; it will show you the exact percentage your battery level is at that time.

And lastly, I want to cover keyboard brightness. Keyboard brightness is the shortcut. The keyboard shortcut is no longer on the M2 computers. So if your school just gave you a new computer in 2024, it's likely that it's an M2 or an M3 computer, and both of those computers no longer have the brightness keyboard shortcuts keys on the keyboard. So you may want to engage that into your menu bar or have it in your Control Center. I'm going to move it up here again, selecting it and dragging it up.

I want to let you also know by turning keyboard brightness or lowering it down will save your battery a lot. Having it always on and having it up at the brightest level will decrease your battery level. That is Control Center; you can access it by simply going to the Apple icon and selecting System Settings. And you can access all of that by selecting the Control Center. I hope that was helpful and entertaining. Thank you for watching.

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