Being told we had to stay home and could not see and do the things we wanted to, did not sound enjoyable at all and there was potential for that to happen. However, I decided to make the best of the situation and learn something new. If you have read my Cooking in Quarantine or First Attempt posts you will know that the new thing I decided to learn was how to make homemade pierogi. This is something that I have always wanted to learn but had heard that it was quite difficult and took lots of time to do, so I never took on the challenge until now.
Before I began I did some research. Check out my spreadsheet where I recorded the places I visited and said what was helpful and not so helpful about the sources. When researching my immediate thought was to go to YouTube and find a tutorial on how to make pierogi. Using YouTube was helpful because it provided a visual for how each step of the process should look. However, YouTube lacked in providing specific ingredient amounts. This led me to affinity spaces, “loosely organized social and cultural settings in which the work of teaching tends to be shared by many people, in many locations, who are connected by shared interest or passion” (Gee, 2018, para. 2). The most familiar affinity space I used was Reddit and I found this to be a valuable resource because not only did it provide me with a list of the specific ingredients that I needed but also how much of each of those ingredients.
Using blackpercula’s Reddit post, Homemade perogies with sauteed onions, and a YouTube video on How to Make Pierogi Dough, I made my first attempt. Overall, it was pretty successful and I learned that it is not as difficult to do as I was told. But it is a very time-consuming process. Another difficulty that I ran into along the way was the folding and sealing process. When I went to go and boil the pierogi I found out that not all of them had been sealed entirely.
Even though making pierogi is time-consuming I made another attempt this week. I mean what else do I really have to do? Binge some other Netflix show? Before I began I did some more research to see if I could solve my issue of not having properly sealed pierogi. I found a YouTube video from America’s Test Kitchen that demonstrated the closing process for me. Using the same resources I used for my first attempt plus the new knowledge I gained from America’s Test Kitchen’s video I started my second attempt. Which ended up being just slightly more successful than my first because I was able to have more properly sealed pierogi! There was only one “angel” (America’s Test Kitchen, 2019) in the batch. Watch my video below to see how my whole pierogi making journey.
In the beginning, I thought this Network Learning Project was going to be quite difficult since I could only use online resources and normally when it comes to cooking my go-to for questions or advice is my mother. However, even though it took some time to find the right online resources I was able to do and create a successful product. Through the project, I was able “to take control of [my] own learning by defining [my] learning goals and monitoring [my] progress in achieving them” (Bransford el at., 2000, p. 18). I enjoyed having the opportunity to be in charge of choosing the new thing I wanted to learn and choosing what resources would support me in the process. Thanks to the project I now have new sources, like Reddit, that have become my new go-to’s for gathering information.
Looking to the future, when starting something or even trying to improve upon something I already know I think I will try to incorporate this idea of networked learning more. I will venture out of my comfort zone to areas I am less familiar with because sometimes those places have some of the most valuable information. In the future, I would also like to keep this idea of networked learning in mind to share with my students. Networked learning would be beneficial for my students because I believe it would aid in their process of becoming 21st century learners.
References
America’s Test Kitchen. (2019). How to Make Potato-Cheddar Pierogi at Home. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64Uv8PMsT5Y
Bransford, J., Brown, A.L. & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368
Gee, J. P. (2018, February 26). Affinity spaces: How young people live and learn online and out of school. Phi Delta Kappan. http://www.kappanonline.org/gee-affinity-spaces-young-people-live-learn-online-school/
Jansen C. (2020). Final NLP. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uryKxLGGnro&t=15s