A couple years ago, my friend Tina wanted to teach a unit on Australia and asked me to find someone in Australia to talk to her 2nd grade class about animals there.
Such a simple request, but I had not idea what would become of it.
We had our first chat with Kylie Kingdon on March 10, 2020. If that date means anything to you, it's because it was mere days before the world (at least here in USA) got turned upside down. Two days after this, we were scrambling to send kids home with everything they would need for remote learning, a totally new concept to all of us. But, back to Australia...
Kylie is a middle and high school teacher in Perth, Western Australia, and has been such a great partner for our project. She talked to our students about animals and money and comparison to America and the Aborgines who used call Perth their native land. It was awesome!
After the kids went home, we were able to teach the kids how to write and produce videos about Australian animals. I love this one about emus:
Fast forward two years since Tina first mentioned this to me, and our partnership has spanned three school years, four Microsoft Teams chats, three video projects, three boxes of food sent between continents (two from Australia to USA and one from USA to Australia), and two Google Slides projects.
Check out this video mixtape of our reactions to Australian food. Some of it is amazing and some of it not so much. All of it is greatly appreciated.
This fall, Kylie got a crazy idea. She is now out of the classroom serving in a coaching role, but wanted to create a way to connect Australian kids and American kids instead of this being a teacher to kid relationship. Just before Christmas Break (which is also Summer Break for them) we had the chance to connect with a 7th grade class in her school on FlipGrid. What an amazing opportunity to talk directly kid to kid and learn from each other. (Check out the FlipGrid mixtape here.)
A project and partnership of this magnitude can't just sit on a shelf where no one can know about it. I was honored earlier this week to co-present with Kylie at the Catholic Education Western Australia Virtual Conference about our partnership. You can watch our session below if you like.
It has been a blast to create an international partnership, which has helped my kids learn about another culture. But, let's be honest, I've made a friend and I'm learning about another culture too. If you have a chance to seek out a teacher in another country, do it! Find them on Twitter or one of the many other platforms available for teachers to connect. You'll be happy you did!
Want to see more of the projects I've done with 2nd grade in Australia? Check out my site. We have Google Slide Shows and Australian Animal Videos and other non-Australia projects too!
My wife and I are quickly approaching our 25th wedding anniversary. When we talked about ways to celebrate, we looked around our house that we are slowly renovating and knew exactly what we wanted to do.
The bulk of my career was spent teaching 6th grade at a large Christian school in Northern Kentucky and for most of those years, my wife was a 5th grade teacher there as well. There were literally hundreds of kids who got a "double dose of Dunlap," for better or for worse. One of those kids was a girl name Lauren, who is now all grown up and an artist in Columbus, OH.
We decided to commission Lauren to paint something amazing for our living room. She agreed and we exchanged important information for her to create the perfect piece. We visited Lauren at her studio this weekend and picked up the painting. It's AMAZING! (I just now noticed the cat looking at us like we are crazy.)
At this point, this is a story of a couple who are both teachers and have been married a long time... and you wonder why it's on a teacher blog. I get it. But the rest of this is an example of the role we play as teachers.
Lauren made a video of the process and posted it on her TikTok, but she also shared personal thoughts in the video too. You just need to watch it.
As she talked to us in person and spoke to us through the video, it hit me big time. As teachers we spend so much time thinking about our content. Back then, it was multiplying decimals and labelling nouns. Now, it's video edits and the basics of engineering. Those things are so important, but sometimes I forget that teaching is about pouring myself into those kids. It's about letting them see me interact with people and the world around me to learn how to do it themselves. And, yes, I know the Dunlaps are a rare exception, but for us, it's a chance to show what marriage is all about too. As teachers, our pride should be in seeing our students become mature adults, ready to tackle whatever role is waiting for them in the world.
I will always cherish that massive canvas on our wall, but I hope I never lose sight of the hidden message it holds. Teaching is so much more than anything I envisioned it to be when I got into this job 28 years ago.
I always make it a point that my students know that we don't "play with robots." I like to tell them, "We don't play in Mr. Dunlap's room. We work really hard doing really fun stuff." As my 5th grade class wrapped up for the day, one of my girls made it a point to tell me that, "it's not really that hard." Whatever...
I thought about the kids in the room who struggled (and learned) how to construct Cubelets robots to drive through a maze or the ones who labored with Sphero code to learn how to make it drive in a rectangle. I can't even describe to you the amount of deep thinking that goes into rising to new challenges with robotics. Sure, it comes easier to some kids than others, but I love celebrating with them when they meet the challenge head on and conquer it. (We celebrated, but I forgot to take pictures.)
One of the girls in my room has been a rock star for me for years, and I handed her the loaner Finch I have in my room. "Here, see what you can do with this." I would check in on her every once in a while and give her a nudge in the right direction. By the end of Thursday, she figured out how to draw a square and play "Hot Cross Buns." Friday, she thought out loud, "Can I make a circle?" -- a thought that I have never had. We worked together and came up with a solution. We were both super proud of ourselves when we produced a few circles.
I love what I do! Yes, it's a blast and it feels like playing, but I love it when the kids accomplish a task that seemed impossible just an hour earlier.
Hello. It's been a while. So much to catch up on, but now's not the time. I have a great story to tell from today. Maybe we'll catch up another day.
In the past 3 years, I've done a lot with robotics and coding. Well, I'm not sure how much I've done compared with other elementary teachers around the world, but I've done a lot for my little corner of the educational world here in Boone County, Kentucky. While I have thoroughly enjoyed using Cubelets, Spheros, and Ozobots, there is a part of me that wants to explore something new.
This summer, I won an mTiny robot from a vendor at ISTE. Cute. Right? I have no idea how to use it. And to be honest, I didn't have time at the beginning of the school year to figure it out. So, it sat for weeks.
Not long ago, I started to research new robots to see what I could add to my room. Through Twitter, I stumbled upon BirdBrain Technologies, and they let you borrow demo robots for free! So, I asked for a Hummingbird and Finch to try. And, you guessed it, I haven't done anything with them.
Not wanting an awesome opportunity to slip by, I decided to do something about it. I contacted my 5th grade teachers and gave them 8 names of handpicked kids to come to my room today. Most of these kids have been in and out of my room since 2nd grade and we know each other well. They excel at technological tasks and were up for the challenge.
I laid it out for them. I know almost nothing about these robots. I own one of them and am borrowing the other two. My goal for them is to learn how to use the robots and tell me if they are worth buying. They would have to work together, read user manuals, and research on Chromebooks to figure it out. The kids were all like, "Yep. Got this. Let's go!" Really?!? No fear?!? Oh! To be a kid again!
This was one of those teaching moments that just got me so excited. The mTiny kids were a bit stumped till we discovered that the coding tiles look like the belong in Scratch Jr. The BirdBrains use micro:bit which none of us know anything about. We quickly realized that we were dealing with a coding language that none of us knew, but it kinda looked like Scratch. Did not faze the students at all. I cheered when I saw the Finch moving. I had to talk to anyone who would listen and care. This is what makerspace robotics is supposed to look like, and it was so refreshing!
I have two more days of these kids learning the new robots, and I cannot wait to see what they will be able to do by Friday!
Now, will we buy these products? Maybe. That's a blog for a different day.
