Short Lessons About the Longest Day of the Year

It is going to be over 90F here in Maine today. That temperature will make it feel like summer a few days before the summer solstice. Many refer to the summer solstice as the "longest day of the year" when they really mean "longest period of daylight in a day." But that's beside the point of this post which is to share a few resources that can help kids understand what the summer solstice is.

SciShow Kids offers a nice video that can help K-3 students understand why the length of daylight changes throughout the year.


Reasons for the Seasons is a TED-Ed lesson appropriate for upper elementary and middle school students. The lesson explains the relationship between the shape of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, the Earth's tilt on its axis, and how those affect the amount of sunlight on different areas of the Earth.


And for a little perspective on winter vs. summer solstice here's a great side-by-side time-lapse of the winter and summer solstices in Manchester, England.

A Great Set of Microsoft Teams Tutorials

I published a bunch of videos about using Google Meet and Zoom this spring. That's because those are the tools that I use the most and I was asked about the most. This afternoon I answered an email from a reader who was looking for help with Microsoft Teams. My recommendation was to check out the videos on Mike Tholfsen's YouTube channel.

Mike is a product manager at Microsoft EDU so he probably knows the products better than just about anyone else who is producing tutorials about Microsoft EDU products including Teams, OneNote, and Immersive Reader.

Here's Mike's tutorial on using Kahoot in Microsoft Teams.



Here's his tutorial on keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Teams.

5 Things Students Can Do in Google Earth Without Google Accounts

Google Earth has many handy little features that your students can use even if they don't have Google accounts. Without a Google account your students can customize the appearance of Google Earth, measure distances and areas, change the units of measurement, and share locations and Street Views with you. Of course, they can also use the more obvious features of Voyager and "I'm feeling lucky" in the web version of Google Earth without having Google accounts.

In the following video I demonstrate five features of Google Earth that your students can use even if they don't have Google accounts.

1. Navigate in Street View
2. Share locations and views.
3. Measure distance and area.
4. Change units of measurement.
5. Change/ customize base map.




Learn more about using Google Earth in this Practical Ed Tech on-demand webinar or in the July session of Teaching History With Technology. 

ICYMI - Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions & Share Cool Stuff

Every Friday this spring I joined Rushton Hurley for a series of webinars simply titled Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions and Share Cool Stuff. That series is going on hiatus until August, but you can watch all of the recordings from this spring right here on Next Vista for Learning.


The series that I did with Rushton is going on hiatus until August, but Rushton will be continuing his series of Activities Across Grade Levels with Susan Stewart. Their next free webinar is this Thursday at 5pm ET/ 2pm PT. The webinar will be about simple video editing tools. You can register here. All of the previous installments in the series can be watched here.

Sodaphonic - A Quick and Easy Way to Create MP3s

Sodaphonic is a free online audio recording and editing tool. It's easy to use and can be used without creating an account on the site.

To create a recording on Sodaphonic simply head to the site and click on "start new project." As soon as you do that you'll be in the Sodaphonic audio editor where you can click the record button to start recording yourself talking, singing, or banging a drum. When you're done recording you can then use the editing tools to cut and trim sections of your recording. The editing tools also include a couple of effects for fading and otherwise adjusting the volume of your audio track.

Completed Sodaphonic recordings can be saved directly on your computer as MP3 files or saved to a Dropbox account.

Applications for Education
Sodaphonic is a tool that I'll add to my list of registration-free audio recording tools. Students and teachers could use Sodaphonic to create short recordings to include in slideshows or to publish as short podcasts.