Tonight I baked two batches of Steamy Kitchen's 3-Hour French Bread. I could not have done it without new media literacy.
It all started this summer when I took a course with Cassie Scharber at the University of Minnesota titled, Teaching Writing through Digital Storytelling. In addition to actually completing a digital story of my own, another assignment for the course was to share a digital "story-of-the-day" with the class. While watching countless YouTube video's I came across the breadolution. It has changed the way I think about literacy.
To be sure, I never really thought much about what literacy was before last year when I started working on my degree in education. But after witnessing MacLeod Pappidas' revolution a new idea occurred to me. Literacy is not only about connecting people to ideas, but also about connecting people through ideas. After experiencing my own breadolution, I now have a shared connection with someone I may have never known otherwise.
The breadolution lead me to the no-knead recipe and then finally to the three hour french bread. After having some trouble with the recipe and making a comment on the SteamyKitchen site, it has sent the largest inbound traffic to my blog in the last several weeks.
What is so important about me making connection to other people interested in bread? What if the story were different, what if I had connected to experts in my field of study or authors that are working on new media projects? What if, and this is the biq question, what if our students were making connections with other students based on shared interests?
Let me tell you from my own experience. A whole new world of connections and possibilities are opened by engaging in the new media particpatory culture. Don't be afraid to write and let your students write. Just make sure you leave a trail of bread crumbs behind you.
3 comments:
The bread was amazing...now I'm going to try and replicate your success...will I make connections myself?
Make sure you always remember who is in charge. I mean REALLY in charge. After that, the connections might draw themselves.
Just read your 9/9 comment...Are you talking Obama in charge?
Made some bread and learned the following:
Water thrown directly in a hot oven that has a broiler and gas heating source below the racks causes brown liquid to seep out of the oven and onto the kitchen floor.
BTW-your bread was better.
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