I’m following a course on blender.
Task in this project was to turn a rectangular shape into a circle with the loop tool.
Steps taken:
In the course the circle is round, In my project is is edgy - only appears round from distance.
thanks!
That is a circle, if you want smoother resolution you need more vertices. The circle tool doesn’t magically add resolution where there is none. You could add a subdivision modifier for a quick and easy way to get more resolution
Or in general, if for some reason you don’t want a cactusload more geometry overall, you can just select all the edges of the circle and subdivide those (Edge → Subdivide) until it is as round as you want it to be. Set Smoothness in the ALO panel to 1 so it adjusts to a circle instead of just creating extra vertices on straight edges.
You are not using the loop tools as intended…
Hover text says: Move selected vertices into a circle shape.
I you use the Add menu for meshes (which is based on polygons) to add a circle then there is the parameter how much vertices you want… and they are (of course) approximations…
If you want real circles you have to use nurbs (bezier curves are not powerfull enough to make real circles…).
But you seem to be fine to have some “edges” on the outer rim… ?? This seems contradictory to me… or somekind of nescience about polygon meshes in general ?? There are mostly just approximations to the real form… 
… any circle on the screen is also just an aprroximation because it is drawn on the pixels the display has… if you zoom in they are just squares or the circle-curve will be newly computed… ← see nurbs
Edge-subdivide sounds very good.
The funny thing I don’t seem to be able to select the circle. I can select the whole part of the headset or the circle and the square around it with box select but I can’t select the circle.
In edge selection mode, holding ALT and clicking on an edge of the circle should select the entire edge ring. Unless there is something weird about your model (which I almost expect 
).
When I hold “option” and click it does not select anything but I can drag the pen and move the view around.
Left click on my pen is absolutely the same thing as left click with a mouse. Something else is at play here…
Oh, you have a Mac and a tablet. Do you have 3-button mouse emulation turned on in Preferences? You might have to change keybindings to get everything to work.
I had a spot of trouble with this when I set up my tablet, but mine has buttons I could reprogram through the tablet driver, which was much less hassle than rebinding keys in Blender.
Actually I have one right click and one left click button but I simply cannot select edge loops.
Pen/Tablet
I think this is why you are having problems.
I remember trying to help you extrude faces and a right click was required for cancelling?
(I am ‘almost’ prepared to put money on this being the reason)
For both problems
Tablet setup is a bit too involved for me to explain here, especially since I’ve only done it once myself and not with the same tablet and the same OS as you; follow a tutorial for that.
Here’s a bunch, hopefully there is one that’ll do it for you: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=blender+tablet+setup. The first did it for me, but he’s not on a Mac, and uses the mouse and keyboard normally, the tablet just for sculpting and painting, which is what I do. Might have to look around a bit. Or find somebody here who has your setup and can quickly guide you.
Thanks, the link to the tutorial also listed several others and I will study them. While I meanwhile bought a mouse it’s still sitting in its box with a piece of cheese mumbling about tablet oriented Blender beginners and how it should be on the workdesk and not that shiny tablet.
Key will be to get the edge loop selection going. I would even take the mouse for that because the way it’s now, selecting by shift click is annoying.
Hint, Ctrl left click will find the shortest path between two whatevers, face, edge, vert.
Saving you some frustration.
