Here are four great sites to find
royalty-free photos:
Pics4Learning. This site offers a safe,
free image library for education.
Teachers and students can use the
copyright-friendly photos and images
for classrooms, multimedia projects,
websites, videos, portfolios, or any
other project in an educational setting. It’s easy to use, and all of the
copyright information is available in
a simplistic bibliography underneath
any chosen photo.
flickrCC. This is a good place to start
when looking for Creative Commons
images. The panel on the left displays
a collage of the first 36 photos matching your search term. Click on any of
these thumbnails to get a slightly larger
image and the attribution details displayed on the right. Right-click the image and hit “save image as” if you want
to use this size, or click on the link
in the attribution text to go to Flickr
and chose a different size. Don’t forget
to include the attribution text in any
work you produce using the picture.
Fotopedia. This site has a nice layout
with an endless-scrolling feature. Students don’t have to click “next” and
wait for more images to load. Results
just keep coming up as you scroll, à la
Google Images. After you find a photo
that fits the bill, simply click on the
info sign that appears when you hover
over the picture. That will open up a
larger image in a new tab with all of
the attributions on the right side.
Fotopedia allows anyone to flag a
photo as inappropriate, and it has a
handy feature that lets you resize any
photo and embed it in a blog (it doesn’t
work with WordPress-hosted sites,
unfortunately) that shows up with the
attribution already included. Make sure
you direct students to select “advanced
options” and tell them to search only
for photos labeled for reuse.
Flickr Storm. This is similar to flickr
CC. You simply run a search, click
on a thumbnail, and the photo appears on the right. Make sure to have
your students click on the advanced
search feature, which allows them to
limit their searches to noncommer-cial and share-alike photos. One nice
feature about Flickr Storm is the Add
to Tray option. When you open your
tray, all the photos you’ve added are
there in large-sized format along with
the attributions.
As our students’ lives and school
work move more into the digital realm,
it is important that we, as educators,
lead by example and show the ethical
and appropriate ways to cite work and
give credit where credit is due.
—Keith Ferrell is an educational technology
coach at Singapore American School. He’s taught
internationally since 2001 and has worked as a
technology coordinator; integration specialist;
classroom teacher; and softball, basketball, and
soccer coach. He blogs at edtechideas.com. Follow him on Twitter @k_ferrell.
