I learned about creative commons at a presentation by Michelle Lantz at the Ohio Tech-Free Convention in January 2010. You can watch her presentation at THIS link
Creative Commons is a good starting point for finding free-to-use photos - this link list started with Ms. Lantz's materials and has expanded since then (and will probably continue to expand). I found many of these sites from THIS article on TutorialBlog.com.
I didn't include EVERYTHING from either source, the list below are those sites that were easy to navigate, free to use, and easy to determine and properly attribute licensing credits.
Google Image Search - now has an option to search only those images that are labelled for reuse. Click on "Advanced Search" and scroll to the bottom of the next screen to find the checkboxes.
Creative Commons - this is the one-stop searching shop from the nice folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Flickr/Commons - this is a collaboration between Flickr and the Library of Congress. It contains a VERY large collection of public domain photos, all of which are free to be used in any way, many of them are posted in the hopes that people might be able to identify the people or places in them.
Compfight - this photo search engine has the ability to limit search results to images that have creative commons licensing right at the top of the screen.
Stockvault - this website has hundreds of free and free-to-use stock photos of generic "things" and scenes. You can download the pictures without signing up but will need to create an account in order to bookmark, email or comment on the pictures, or to upload your own.
MorgueFile - another website with lots of free and free-to-use photos. Pictures here have no licensing at all and do not need to be attributed.
FreeRange - this site is loaded with free and free-to-use stock photos. You'll need to register for a free account in order to download photos.
EveryStockPhoto - this one is more of a search engine for looking for photos. Use Advanced Search to make choices about license, resolution, account requirements, etc. It does not currently have a checkbox for creative commons licensing, but it does have a box that will display the licensing used by the photographer.
StockXChng - huge site. All photos are free and free-to-use.
OpenPhoto - another huge site full of free and free-to-use photos. You only need to register if you want to upload and contribute your own photos.
PhotoRogue - this site takes free and free-to-use to the next level. You can actually make a REQUEST for a particular image you would like to use and their network of photographers will go to work to make it happen for you - all for free!
Geek Philosopher - this site offers log-in, but does not require it. Photos are free and free-to-use with artist attribution (you give credit to the photographer)
PhotoRack - this site offers free and free-to-use photos without required log-in. What's especially cool about this one is the EXTENSIVE heirarchy of categories on its home page which makes it very easy to find exactly what you want. Don't use the right-click download trick....look for the link to download without the watermark.
FreePixels - another site free and free-to-use photos. This one also has a nice heirarchy of categories and also has a tags cloud on the homepage to help you find what you're looking for.
DesignPacks - this site offers up free and free-to-use photos that are organized into coordinated groups of photos. You download a zip file and get a bunch of pictures that would all work together in the same project because they have the same values, color schemes, etc.
FreeFoto - this site uses Creative Commons licensing, asking for link-back and attribution. Many photos also ask that you don't manipulate the images to create new ones. They explain it all in an easy-to understand rules page and each image has an easy button-link to display the license for that particular file.
PixelPerfectDigital - I didn't see anything on this site about licensing for their stock photo collection - but I also didn't see anything restricting use of their images. One thing I liked a lot was the information and news about digital photography in general, which is a nice mix of guru-geek-speak and every day language.
FreeDigitalPhotos - this site offers web-quality images for free, and high-quality printable images for a price. They ask for attribution and even provide the html code to create the link that includes the artist's name.
PublicDomainPhotos - this site has a large collection of free and free-to-use photos and clipart. No attributions are required, but users are warned to be careful about images that include logos (like a picture of a storefront).
HistoricalStockPhotos - this site offers free and free-to-use web-quality photos for email and personal websites. If you want printables, they provide a link to another site, and the prices there are not low.
NationsIllustrated - this is a Canadian site that houses free-to-use photos (non-commercial use is allowed) from all over the world. Registration allows you to upload, rate and comment on pictures. When you see a picture you like, you add it to a download list, and then download all of the photos you've chosen as a zip file.
KaveWall - this site specializes in very close-up images of common things. They use Creative Commons licensing asking for attribution and non-commercial use. Web-quality images are free, and high-resolution images are available for purchase. The site also sells t-shirts and offers graphic design services.
ImageBase - this site says on its homepage that you can treat all images as public domain (free and free to use). It includes not only images but also powerpoint templates and offers even high-resolution downloads for free.
Cepolina - this is an international collection of free and free-to-use images that asks for attribution to the website. Many levels of resolution are available for free download and the homepage includes a nice category list to help you with your browsing.
Image*After - this site offers both images and textures (each listed in its own drop-down menu from the homepage) and allows ANY use of its pictures except creating another webpage like theirs. No attribution required. The images looked kind of amateurish (like someone's vacation snapshots), but the texture images definitely did have that "artsy" quality to them.
ZenTextures - this site was mentioned in a comment to the TutorialBlog article. There is a terms of use link on the homepage that says you are free to do anything with the images except sell them as your own work or host them on your own site. and the textures are beautiful.
FreeStockImages and RoyaltyFreeImages - these two websites are owned and operated by the same person. Not much in the way of organization or searching with tags, but very pretty texture images that are probably worth the browsing time, especially since they're totally free and free-to-use-however-you-like.
Whew!!! Did I miss your favorite source? Tell everyone about it in the comments!
Showing posts with label graphics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label graphics. Show all posts
How 2 understand Creative Commons Licensing
Teachers spend a lot of time and energy worrying about plagiarism of the written word. Schools invest money in services like turnitin.com, sentenceworks.com and other services that scan written documents for plagiarism.
But what about visual plagiarism?
What do you do when you need a picture of some thing? Probably google the keywords, click on "images" and download the best thing that pops up. But did you ever notice the little warning that "this image might be subject to copywright"? Maybe you noticed, but do you know what it means?
What it means is that you've probably broken the law by using pictures you didn't have the right to use. It probably also means that your students have done the same thing.
SO WHAT DO I DO ABOUT IT???
The easiest thing to do is do your search through the creative commons service, which was created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Creative Commons is a way for normal people to lay claim to things they have created, and to specify how others are allowed to use it (I'll blog a lot more about this later - for now, here's a quick youtube video about it)
The search website is here and this is what it looks like:
When you type in your keyword(s) - notice the two checkboxes where you can tell the search engine what you want to be able to do with the image - checking both will get you the images that have the most permissive rights.
Then you check each tab to see what people have put out there - these are the things that are OK to use.
But what about visual plagiarism?
What do you do when you need a picture of some thing? Probably google the keywords, click on "images" and download the best thing that pops up. But did you ever notice the little warning that "this image might be subject to copywright"? Maybe you noticed, but do you know what it means?
What it means is that you've probably broken the law by using pictures you didn't have the right to use. It probably also means that your students have done the same thing.
SO WHAT DO I DO ABOUT IT???
The easiest thing to do is do your search through the creative commons service, which was created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Creative Commons is a way for normal people to lay claim to things they have created, and to specify how others are allowed to use it (I'll blog a lot more about this later - for now, here's a quick youtube video about it)
The search website is here and this is what it looks like:
When you type in your keyword(s) - notice the two checkboxes where you can tell the search engine what you want to be able to do with the image - checking both will get you the images that have the most permissive rights.
Then you check each tab to see what people have put out there - these are the things that are OK to use.
How 2 Share Presentations or Documents on the Web
Powerpoint has pretty much replaced posterboard for research projects that are either supposed to be "more fun" than traditional research papers, or that really do need more visuals than straight text.
However - there are a great many possible formats to these, and the introduction of Microsoft Office 2007, with its members-only format, has made transferring these projects from student computer to teacher computer extra-difficult.
Plus - there's always the problem of "I saved the wrong version" or "my email won't let me send a file that big".
Try www.slideshare.net
Slideshare will handle up to 100MB files in the following formats:
Presentations: pdf, ppt, pps, pptx, ppsx, pot, potx (Powerpoint); odp (OpenOffice); key, zip (Apple Keynote).
Documents: pdf, doc, docx, rtf, xls (MSOffice); odt, ods(OpenOffice); Apple iWork Pages.
You can choose for your document to be viewable by the whole world, just you, or somewhere in between. You can make your file downloadable or not.
This is a free site but it requires a log-in. There is also a short wait time while your file is processed before you can access it. For this blog post, I created a 3-slide powerpoint file and it took just a few seconds to upload, and it was availble for viewing in about 3 minutes.
Not only can your presentation now be viewed (small or full-screen) from any internet-connected computer, but you can generate embed code to post anywhere AND you can email a link to anyone. If you like, slideshare will import your address book from most of the popular webmail services.
Others (from the world, or from the list of people you invited) can leave comments.
There are tools on the site to add in an audio file to create what they call a "slidecast" - this is not to upload music - it's intended for a recording of a speaker who might be using the presentation. [note: make this recording with audacity] If you click on the link for that option, there are several help files available that will guide you through the process of synchronizing the audio file and the visual of your slides.
You can even post a transcript of the audio portion of your presentation.
Most of the presenters at an educational technology convention I recently attended used this site to post the presentation materials they used. A few talked about how they taught their students to use it for projects.
Here's the presentation I created to test this out:
However - there are a great many possible formats to these, and the introduction of Microsoft Office 2007, with its members-only format, has made transferring these projects from student computer to teacher computer extra-difficult.
Plus - there's always the problem of "I saved the wrong version" or "my email won't let me send a file that big".
Try www.slideshare.net
Slideshare will handle up to 100MB files in the following formats:
Presentations: pdf, ppt, pps, pptx, ppsx, pot, potx (Powerpoint); odp (OpenOffice); key, zip (Apple Keynote).
Documents: pdf, doc, docx, rtf, xls (MSOffice); odt, ods(OpenOffice); Apple iWork Pages.
You can choose for your document to be viewable by the whole world, just you, or somewhere in between. You can make your file downloadable or not.
This is a free site but it requires a log-in. There is also a short wait time while your file is processed before you can access it. For this blog post, I created a 3-slide powerpoint file and it took just a few seconds to upload, and it was availble for viewing in about 3 minutes.
Not only can your presentation now be viewed (small or full-screen) from any internet-connected computer, but you can generate embed code to post anywhere AND you can email a link to anyone. If you like, slideshare will import your address book from most of the popular webmail services.
Others (from the world, or from the list of people you invited) can leave comments.
There are tools on the site to add in an audio file to create what they call a "slidecast" - this is not to upload music - it's intended for a recording of a speaker who might be using the presentation. [note: make this recording with audacity] If you click on the link for that option, there are several help files available that will guide you through the process of synchronizing the audio file and the visual of your slides.
You can even post a transcript of the audio portion of your presentation.
Most of the presenters at an educational technology convention I recently attended used this site to post the presentation materials they used. A few talked about how they taught their students to use it for projects.
Here's the presentation I created to test this out:
Sample Presentation
View more presentations from awaldfogle.
How 2 make embeddable screen shots and even movies
This one involves some software that you have to install on your computer - but it's free, and free is a good price.
It's also AWESOME and so handy I can't believe I survived before discovering it.
www.jingproject.com
I use this to create virtually all of the screen-shots that I post on this blog - mostly because of the awesome ability to instantly generate imbed code. The image itself is posted on Jing's website, and the embed code is saved to my clipboard.
You can download files too, but so far I've only used the embed code generator - there's a tiny bit of work involved in creating a button to generate embed code, but the help information walks you right through it.
You can also draw a screen-shot box and record a video clip of what you're doing on the screen. If you have a microphone on your computer, it will record your voice as you describe what you're doing. Again, you can tell it to generate imbed code and you get something like this:
There's a video on the jing site that goes into more detail - but I can promise you, once you start playing with this, you will use it for EVERYTHING!!!
It's also AWESOME and so handy I can't believe I survived before discovering it.
www.jingproject.com
I use this to create virtually all of the screen-shots that I post on this blog - mostly because of the awesome ability to instantly generate imbed code. The image itself is posted on Jing's website, and the embed code is saved to my clipboard.
You can download files too, but so far I've only used the embed code generator - there's a tiny bit of work involved in creating a button to generate embed code, but the help information walks you right through it.
You can also draw a screen-shot box and record a video clip of what you're doing on the screen. If you have a microphone on your computer, it will record your voice as you describe what you're doing. Again, you can tell it to generate imbed code and you get something like this:
There's a video on the jing site that goes into more detail - but I can promise you, once you start playing with this, you will use it for EVERYTHING!!!
