In August, I wrote about using DeepZoom photograph technology to explore historical maps and Churchill. Well, after the success of those, the developers (Shoothill) have created an interactive guide to The Battle of Britain resource, on MSN – with another TimeMap, allowing you to view today’s satellite images, and overlay it with Luftwaffe maps used to pinpoint targets for the bombers. You can actually see the images of the maps as well as original aerial reconnaissance photos, and see that German pilots had British maps with carefully drawn outlines of strategic targets – water works, power stations, gas works, docks and a spark plug factory (there’s a GCSE question all on its own!).
It’s also got a fantastic archive photograph, hidden within a DeepZoom image of St Paul’s Cathedral – so as you zoom in on the photo, thousands of further images are revealed. And finally, a set of Photosynths of Battle of Britain planes, which you can explore in 3D, with fantastically zoomable images.
All of these projects are really powerful ways of using interactive media in the classroom – and make excellent use of historical archives as well as today’s multimedia resources. I wonder if it will be long before this becomes the standard way to release historical resources?