Real-Time Research: Twitter & Jaiku

“Follow your friends” and “mini-blogging” services like Twitter and Jaiku have been characterized as everything from social networking “light” to the coolest way to share thoughts and stay in touch with friends and colleagues. For the purposes of this post, I’d like to consider how these real-time messaging services might impact scholarly teaching and research.

A screenshot of the Jaiku interface.

For those unfamiliar with the “twitting” phenomenon, here are a few words of introduction:

“Twitter is a community of friends and strangers from around the world sending updates about moments in their lives. Friends near or far can use Twitter to remain somewhat close while far away. Curious people can make friends. Bloggers can use it as a mini-blogging tool. Developers can use the API to make Twitter tools of their own. Possibilities are endless!” (Official Twitter FAQ)

To let others know what you are doing or where you are at any given moment using these services, you simply create a mini-blog post by either 1) sending a text message from your mobile phone 2) typing a message from the Web site 3) instant messaging from AIM, Jabber or Gtalk. A number of third-party applications (desktop gadgets, system tray tools, browser plug-ins) are also available for facilitating message posting. Posts can be shared publicly or limited to selected contacts or friends. Feeds of your posts are instantly sent to interested members of the community, keeping them updated on your activities or whereabouts.

“Presence updating” tools and feeds are quickly being introduced into larger social networking applications like Facebook. At the recent Harvard Academic Computing Committee’s Workshop on the Use of Technology in Teaching and Learning, Harvard undergraduates described Facebook as the center of their social and academic universe. Being able to see where classmates are at any given moment is useful for coordinating study groups, catching up on missed classes and notes, asking each other homework questions, collaborating on class projects, etc.

In addition to helping students social network, services like Twitter and Jaiku could be leveraged to aid researchers with projects where the transmission of timely information or “real-time” communication is essential. Some examples might include reporting “in-the-field” survey results, monitoring environmental conditions from diverse locations, coordinating academic conference schedules, and developing distributed research projects across institutions.

Analyzing Art: Beneath the Canvas

Although nearly 10 years old, the Investigating the Renaissance project by Harvard’s Straus Center for Conservation remains a superb illustration of how imaging technologies such as infrared reflectography, x-radiography, and ultraviolet light can reveal a painting’s creation process, conservation history, materials and, in some cases, even authenticity.

Using infrared light, conservators can study the underdrawing beneath a painted surface and determine if the drawing was intended as a rigid model or loose concept for the final painting, what modifications were made at various stages of production, how shaded areas were represented in drawings, and other technical details.

Investigating the Renaissance illustrates how viewing the same painting under different kinds of light can reveal hidden information about the artist and his work. Painting details: Master of the 1540s. Netherlandish, active 1540-1551. Portait of a Man, 1541. Oil on wood, 40.3 x 35 cm. Fogg Art Museum. Loan by Vermeer Associates Ltd. 48.1992.

With a much shorter wavelength than visible light, X-radiography can be used to identify pigments, reveal changes in composition, and study a painting’s support and condition. X-rays can also reveal aspects of the artist’s technique and the order in which different pigments were likely applied to the canvas.

The conservation history of a painting can be revealed using ultraviolet light. Since UV light causes various colors of paint and layers of varnish to fluoresce in different ways, attempts at restoration and retouching using newly applied materials can easily be detected. UV examination can also help to identify specific pigments in certain cases.

Recently, Harvard curators and conservators have used a variety of advanced imaging technologies–including Raman spectroscopy, Laser Desorption Ionization–Time of Flight–Mass Spectroscopy, and Scanning Electron Microscopy Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy–to help determine the authenticity of three paintings attributed to Jackson Pollock. They concluded that some of the pigments used in the paintings appear to date from after Pollock’s death in 1956. For further details, see the Technical Analysis of Three Paintings Attributed to Jackson Pollock (PDF) report released by the Harvard University Art Museums.

The latest imaging technologies have totally revolutionized the field of art conservation and offer unprecedented activity-based learning opportunities for today’s students in both the sciences and the history of art. There is something inherently exciting about the prospect of going beneath the surface of a canvas to better understand the techniques of great artists, to chart the complex conservation history of art centuries old, and to identify the unique materials of a masterwork.

Selected links:

• Getty Conservation Institute: Analytical Instrumentation & Techniques
• The Science of Art Conservation
• Minneapolis Institute of Arts: Restoration Online
• Harvard Gazette article: Fine art, cutting-edge science meet at Straus Center
• Harvard Crimson article: Pigment Could Undo Pollock

Facebook French Class?

One of the greatest challenges in foreign language teaching is finding native speakers for students to practice with outside of class. Arranging study abroad, language tables, and visiting local ethnic neighborhoods are some of the ways instructors currently attempt to broaden the cultural and linguistic experiences of their students. However, the costs associated with these activities often present a burden to students and their parents, and it is often difficult to find local speakers or communities using the target language.

Social networking sites (like MySpace and Facebook) and metaverses (like Second Life) now offer students additional opportunities to find international friends and practice their language proficiency Online. In addition to finding international pen pals to correspond with through Web chat or text messaging, the integration of VoIP technologies into these environments enables students to practice their oral/aural skills and to better understand the regional differences in language usage, accents, cadence, and other linguistic variants.

A MySpace page dedicated to Romance Language speakers.

Scenario 1: A Facebook page is created by a French language teacher in the U.S. for his/her class and linked to a similar page created by an English teacher in France. Through a series of moderated activities or even through informal chat sessions, the two student groups take turns practicing the two languages.

Scenario 2: A German language teacher purchases a plot of land in Second Life and creates a virtual classroom, inviting any Deutch-speaking avatars to meet and practice their language skills. Instructors, Teaching Fellows or other native speakers could volunteer to monitor the space and help correct grammar or pronunciation errors.

These technologies could generate new forms of peer instruction for language learners, innovative pedagogical approaches for foreign language study, and enrich the study abroad experiences of students (who could look forward to visiting their “virtual classmates” while exploring a new culture).