Inquiry with imagery: historical archive retrieval with digital cameras

This paper describes an integration of geographic information systems (GIS) and multimedia technologies to transform the ways K-12 students learn about their local communities. We have augmented a digital camera with a global positioning system (GPS) and a digital compass to record its position and orientation when pictures are taken. The metadata are used to retrieve and present historical images of the photographed locations to students. Another set of tools allows them to annotate and compare these historical images to develop explanations of how and why their communities have changed over time. We describe the camera architecture and learning outcomes that we expect to see in classroom use.