Navigation Basics

Touch Screen

This tablet has a touch screen. You interact with it by touching it with your finger(s). If you place your finger on the screen and slide it upwards a little bit, the contents on the screen should move up. This is called scrolling! You can also swipe downwards on the screen to scroll in the opposite direction. You can try scrolling up and down on this page to get used to the motion.

What is a tablet, anyway?

Now that you can scroll up and down, you can look at the image below which compares some common types of devices. These devices will be mentioned throughout the content. One of them is a tablet, which is likely what you are using to read this.

A tablet is a device that is rectangular and flat. It is bigger than a mobile phone and cannot be used to make phone calls or send text messages. One benefit of tablets is their portability.

Buttons

A lot of the things you may want to do on a tablet will involve clicking on different buttons on the screen. These are not physical buttons, like the button to turn the tablet on and off. Instead, these buttons are areas of the screen that you click to make something happen. The buttons in this course are mainly used for navigating between different pages.

For instance, there should be a "Next page" button at the bottom of this page. If you tap on it with your finger, it will take you to the next page. Most pages of this course will have a "Next page" button to go forward and a "Previous page" button to go back.