Pineapple Juice

I am sure many of my blog readers remember my fondness for Peruvian pineapple juice. What many of you may not know is that I acquired a juicer for Christmas. Whole Foods Market, our local organic food store, has been stocking perfectly ripened pineapples from Costa Rica for about three weeks now, so I finally gave in to my pineapple juice craving. I have to say, out of all the juices I have made so far, pineapple is the easiest and the most delicious. Unlike many other juices, you do not have to add anything to pineapple juice. You just need to cut off the top portion and the outside skin. I suggest cutting the inner portion of the pineapple into quarters and then halving the quarters. You do not need to remove the inner core, most juicers will separate this for you. The result is a perfectly sweetened pale yellow juice with a light frothy top layer. For best results, refrigerate the pineapple twenty-four hours before juicing and do not strain the froth. One pineapple makes approximately three 6 ounce glasses of juice.

Enjoy!!

Machu Picchu Video

This may be one of the last posts I create from my trip to Peru. I do plan on following up with further news from Peru or on the Inca as I come across it. I am always on the search for articles pertaining to archeology or anthropology, specifically on Pre-Columbian cultures from Mexico or South America. The following video footage is from Professor Marilyn White of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Kean University. I edited her video together with some of my favorite photographs from Machu Picchu. To all of those who have followed our adventure, thank you! I hope to travel again soon so I can continue to share my experiences.

Ancient City Discovered in Peru

On January 10th, the last day we were in Peru, it was announced that the lost Inca city of Paititi may have been found. Legend has it that the Inca hero Inkarri, who founded Cusco, built the city after retreating from the Spanish. Follow the link below to read the National Geographic article online.

Ancient "Lost City" Discovered in Peru

Reflection on Digital Media in the Classroom

Traveling is a luxury not everyone can enjoy, especially when it comes to traveling internationally. Few students in public education have had the opportunity to travel and learn abroad. However, the ever changing world of technology is making it possible to bring travel to the classroom environment. Students can experience and learn from the journey of hundreds of other people that share their experiences online. Educators can also share their own journeys or the journeys of their peers or other students. Large internet corporations, like Google, provide programs such as Google Earth which allows users to visit anywhere in the world at the click of a mouse button. However, the question that presents itself is, “How can we, as educators, use all of this technological information effectively in the classroom?” I began to question this myself as the date for our iStory Tour drew closer.

In my bags for the trip to Peru, I packed an array of technology geared towards producing digital media. My laptop’s hardware was recently cleaned and several new programs, such as iTunes and Audacity, were installed. My digital camera battery was fully charged, four fresh gigs of compact memory were taken out of their plastic casings, and I finally invested in a table sized tripod. I had just ordered and received an Olympus digital voice recorder specifically with a PC connection cable and audio software, but I had never used a digital voice recorder before. All I could think of when viewing all this technology was how much extra weight it was adding to my carry-on and how long it would take me to get through airport security. Would 25 pounds of electronic carry-on matter to anyone besides the TSA? Is it worth the chiropractor visits I would need when I returned? I would be in Peru for less than twenty-four hours before I would find out.

The first night in Peru I posted to my online blog an initial reaction to being in the city of Lima. On the bus ride to the hotel, I took a few photos to give readers an idea of where I had arrived. By the next morning, I already had three comments on my blog. That is all it took to get me excited about sharing my experience. On my best day, I averaged seven comments and twenty-six readers. For the most part, I had family, friends, and co-workers reading and posting comments, questions, and requests for photographs. I saw my blog and my experience as a way to educate everyone about the trip. Later, I would find out that the popularity of my blog would increase more than I expected. My friends shared it with their friends, my family shared it with their neighbors, and my co-workers shared it with our business clients. Even elementary students, fellow teachers, and school administrators were reading my entries by the time I arrived home. In all, I estimate that over one-hundred and fifty people of all ages shared my experience. It was when I made this realization that I truly understood the power of technology in education.

Initially, the asynchronous communicative ability of maintaining a blog intrigued me more than any of the other technology I had on hand. Each time I posted an entry, individuals throughout the World Wide Web had the ability to read my entry within minutes, hours, or days. Those wishing to subscribe to my blog had the ability to do so through an RSS feeder. This feature is particularly important to those individuals who may choose to incorporate the progress of a trip in the classroom environment. Currently in the United States, one hundred percent of classrooms have access to the Internet. However, Internet access can be limited to those traveling abroad. As a result, it is important that educators familiarize themselves with feeders. With an RSS feeder, an individual can be contacted through email when a blog post is made. This can be useful with such digital media as Podcasts, which also provide links to feeders for notification purposes. In an educational setting, feeders can aid educators in maintaining their time on task. Student interest can be heightened through the anticipation of receiving notification that a communicative digital media has been updated with additional information for their use in the classroom.

After visiting several locations in Peru and making great use of my digital camera, I was able to upload images to my online album. In essence, by posting the pictures online, individuals are provided with a virtual fieldtrip. While I am sure this was a wonderful experience for my friends and family, I can just imagine how fascinating it is for students. I began by photographing items that interested me which usually includes creative angles of architectural or design elements throughout the area. However, I received requests to photograph the people, their homes, the fauna, the food, and everything in-between which forced me to be more creative and develop an educational eye. I began this process by organizing my photos by city. I had a web album for Lima, Cusco, and Machu Picchu. I later added one for food, one for fauna, and one for the environmental images I took during water testing. There was the potential to add additional organizational folders, but tags can provide an easy organizational solution as well. While images can be organized into album folders, I can also tag my digital media with searchable key words. Through this, I am able to link my photos and blog entries to those of fellow student iStory travelers, world travelers, and any individual who uses a similar keyword. When using keywords in the classroom environment, educators must be careful to preview the results before using them in lessons. Those creating a tag can publish inappropriate content with tag words that may not pertain to the image. When tags are accurate, educators are presented with a unique perspective of just about anything they are wishing to present to their class. Educators can also contact other individuals through their images or link together tags to create discussion groups about the images or blog entries.

Perhaps the one piece of electronic equipment that I believed I would rarely use was the digital voice recorder. How quickly my opinion changed once I downloaded my first batch of recordings. I have a long way to go in learning how to correctly use the recorder to capture clean sounds with limited distortion. I have definitely learned an individual must be comfortable with the digital media at hand, especially if bringing it back into the classroom. In order to maintain time management and discipline, the individual must know how to troubleshoot on the spot and not stress if they are unable to persuade the digital media to work. There should always be a back-up plan behind the technology or at least good software. Olympus provided me with the basics to download and listen to my recorded sounds, but an open source software program called Audacity provided me with the ability to correct, edit, and splice my recordings together. Not only was I able to provide blog viewers with a written story and visual representation of Peru, but I was now able to provide complete multi-sensory stimulation through the sounds of Peru. I found myself recording the tour guides, the musicians, the waterfall in the lobby of our hotel that prevented me from napping, and most importantly, fellow iStory travelers. When I arrived home, it was a unique experience to listen to the voices of individuals I may never interact with again. I was able to share their voices and experience with blog readers who now became listeners. By the end of the trip, the only piece missing was the ability to share the pungent odor of the rivers or the flavor of our gourmet meals.

Upon returning home, the blogging process has not ended for me. I am still finding material to share. In my own daily interactions with digital media, I have been coming across publications which relate back to our iStory tour. With people still viewing, reading, and listening to my blog, I feel a responsibility to continue sharing information pertaining to the trip. In the classroom, this is important as well. The Internet is a rich source for research material and informational sources. It also opens up a whole new resource for student and educator collaborative work. Students can interact with other students around the world. Educators can share information and discuss techniques with fellow educators whether they are in California, New Jersey, or Peru. In addition to the asynchronous communication discussed earlier, there is also the ability for synchronous communication. Through video chats, students can interview or talk with individuals abroad. For example, consider the work Elaine Wrenn accomplished with our travel group. Using a video chat, she was able to synchronize a time to speak with a classroom of students at her school about the data she collected for them from the rivers throughout areas of Peru. Students were able to begin the project in their classroom in California with asynchronous communication through Ms. Wrenn’s blog and email. After reviewing this information, students could develop questions and present them to her while she was still onsite in Peru.

Digital media supports new, unique, and creative approaches to lessons within the classroom. However, one of the most important abilities I see within the use of digital media relates to one of my favorite educational theorists, Howard Gardner. Gardner’s theory discusses multiple intelligences. He believes in utilizing an individual’s strongest form of intelligence to develop abilities in other areas. Some students learn through visualization, others through reading, while others through listening or participating hands on. Digital media allows all aspects of intelligence to be explored and allows the student to learn through an individually-centered curriculum previously not easily obtainable in the traditional classroom setting.

A Week at Home

My thoughts at work and home have consistently been wandering to my experiences in Peru. It is extremely hard for me to be back and involved in the day to day of my New Jersey life. I miss the pace of Peruvian life. People work hard attempting to sell their crafts, sweeping the streets, sowing the fields, and building their houses. There’s a peacefulness that settles over their towns that we do not have here. I remember being on the train to Machu Picchu and as the train passed by within feet of the mud brick homes in Cuzco, mothers stopped hanging their laundry, kids stopped playing, dogs stopped chasing each other, and men stopped farming to watch. The train must pass their homes several times a day and yet they take a minute out of their day to watch. The train passes through at the foot of the Andes, past villages and fields, where people just stop. I remember a farmer stood up in his potato field, wiped his brow, and watched as we passed. One man and a boy, possibly home from school on summer vacation, stopped the plow and watched the train. Some of them were possibly in awe of this great beast chugging through their farmland. They watch in amazement and with open arms, maybe the way the Inca welcomed the Spanish conquistadors.

One thing that amazes me is that people are still reading my blog. I really appreciate all of the readers and especially everyone who has been commenting and leaving questions for me. I would like to address a couple of these questions here.

Tyler from the school asked: "Was the hike (on Mt. Machu Picchu) very steep on your long, long, long way down? Did you have a fun time in Machu Picchu?"

Thanks for asking Tyler. Yes, the hike was very steep. I was glad that I had brought an adjustable walking stick from home with me. Even though I walk and hike on a weekly basis, I was not prepared for the hike down Machu Picchu. What's really amazing is that most native people can complete a downhill hike like that in under 30-minutes. I had a lot of fun at Machu Picchu, especially as a photographer. Every hour brought a different type of weather element, lighting situation, and unexpected natural elements like rainbows. Did you know that there are caves at Machu Picchu too? It was fun to discover them as we walked through the ruins.

Emma from the school asked: "Was it fun to collect water samples? How long did it take? Machu Picchu sounds really beautiful. Would you visit it again if you could?"

Thank you for posting Emma. My favorite experience on the trip was having the opportunity to help collect the water samples. I'm just glad I didn't have to put my own hands in the water. I was able to see a side of Peru that as a tourist you would not have the opportunity to see. Just about every water source took us through real neighborhoods and even some people's backyards. It only took about 15-20 minutes to collect water at each source. However, I know Elaine and Diana spent several hours doing further testing back at the hotel at the end of the day.

Machu Picchu was very beautiful. It is one of my favorite places in the world. Someday I hope I can go back and try climbing another mountain or maybe even hike the Inca Trail which brings you right into Machu Picchu by foot instead of by train. It's funny you should ask this question because I asked a similar question of the group before I left. I asked, "Would you return to Peru again or was this a once in a lifetime trip? If you did return, what would you want to see and why?" If you would like to listen to individual responses from our group, please click on the title of this blog entry (A Week at Home) and it will bring you to the recording.

Cuy as Big as a Bull in South America?

While reading the New York Times on my lunch break today, I came across the following Associated Press article. It really made me think twice about my decision in Peru to partake in a lunch of cuy, or to us here in North America, the rodent and pet better known as a guinea pig. Imagine a guinea pig so large that it weighed between 1,700 and 3,000 pounds. That could feed an entire Inca army! I remember while we were on the bus on the way to Ollaytantambo there was a mother with her son standing in a doorway. She had a large woven bag draped over her shoulder that appeared to be moving and in her hands she held up two of the largest guinea pigs I had ever seen. They most likely weighed between 9 and 12 pounds. If you are interested in the pre-historic version of cuy, please take a look at the article below by clicking on the title.

Long Ago, a Rodent as Big as a Bull Lurked in South America

Far from Home

It is now Saturday and I have officially been home in New Jersey for twenty-four hours. The past forty-eight hours have been an emotional roller coaster though. I never expected to feel the way I do now that I am home. The past week has felt like an eternity. From the moment we began our journey to Cusco, I knew Peru would always hold onto a part of me. Just a week before I was in Peru, I was in Florida, and although I enjoyed Florida thoroughly, I missed aspects of New Jersey. In Peru, once outside of Lima, I forgot New Jersey existed. The stress of reality was lifted and once I was over the altitude, my breathing and overall physical state improved. If I look tired in the pictures (which I know I do) it's only because Edwin, our tour guide, insisted we get up no later than 5:00 a.m. every morning and my body insisted on staying up and taking it all in until 2:00 a.m. I never felt tired... until today. I'm happy to be home with my family, but I miss everyone already.

The group from left to right standing: Erin, Rosa, Frank, Ann, Tim, Diana, Jen, Karina, Mike, Priscilla, Marilyn, and Kathy.

From left to right sitting: Elaine, Giseth, Colleen, Rebeca, Nikki, and Myself.

Rebeca, Erin, and Jen - breakfast on my couch will not compare to our table at the hotels every morning. I have no one to share my homeopathic medicine cabinet with anymore and there certainly is not an ounce of fresh pineapple juice in the fridge this morning.

Frank - I wish we could all relive your birthday everyday. I promise I was not on my computer at all yesterday and this should be one of only a handful of times I am on today. Thank you for your bartering strategies and I hope I was able to help you blog your way through Peru.

Nikki, Giseth, Rosa, and Karina - thank you for keeping me laughing. It was wonderful to spend time with all of you on the trip. Karina and Rosa, I'm really glad you tried the horseback riding. Now, I just hope no one smuggled back our guinea pig head.

Colleen - you are always such a positive person. Everything we did, you always carried such a wonderful and contagious smile. Keep smiling.

Priscilla - I'll never forget your dogs. It was fun speaking with you about our organic food choices. If I ever find another shirt with thumb holes, I'll be sure to point you to where it is.

Marilyn - You're the best person I could have had as a roommate. I hope my late nights blogging didn't affect the few hours Edwin gave us to sleep. Thank you for everything, but especially for your support. I'll never forget the quote you gave me, it is definitely one I needed at this time. I'm still going through tissues.

Elaine - Thank you for showing us how effective technology can be in the classroom. Peru will be a topic of conversation for your students for many weeks to come. This is one of those experiences that as adults we remember from our childhood when we reflect on our own time as students in the classroom. Your work may pave the path to a student's future career decision. Also, I was really excited I could be the official river photographer. More than anything, it showed me a side of Peru that opened my eyes to the reality of the people who live there. Thank you for keeping me laughing. I'll never forget shopping for swim wear in Machu Picchu or Cusco paraphernalia. Thank you for being my clothing guinea pig. I'm sorry I made all of us go swimming in that cold pool in Lima, especially after the fact that I found out where the hot tub was on the plane ride home. By the way, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online ... all day. Besides, we both know I'm training to become a cage fighter.

Diana - I'm lucky I have you on the East Coast. You had said it best and I agree. There will always be a part of my soul in Peru as well. There is a small part in Cusco, another in Chinchero with the weavers, and there's even a little bit at each of the rivers, but the largest part is on the summit of the mountain Machu Picchu. It watches the sun rise and set, it spies the rams on the mountain peaks, it greets those that follow in our footsteps, and it is no longer afraid of heights. Thank you for being there for me on the plane ride home. How ironic that we would have been seated next to each other on that particular flight. I didn't get to say goodbye to you at the airport, but we will be in contact soon.


Myself, Elaine, and Diana at Lima airport before coming home