Looking For More or Unique Imagery For Your IWB Presentation?

Sometimes the SMART Notebook galleries do not quite have what we are looking for as far as imagery to go along with our lesson or to create some contextual connections to the content.  In Google Search find imagery that is transparent.  Transparent images have a transparent background on the image, eliminating the "square" around your image when you import it into your presentation.

Looking for more or unique pics for your IWB presentation? Find transparent images: #edtech pic.twitter.com/zq5nDCcXKa

— Benjamin Nason (@Ratkacher) April 30, 2015

Free Images

Just wanted to feature a Google+ post I found yesterday by +Tony Vincent.   He gives a great explanation of the importance of giving attribution to whatever we take online for our own use and gives some resources of free imagery that can be used, royalty-free.  Giving proper attribution to imagery or any kind of digital content online is something that students do not know enough about.  I believe many students think it is ok to download images and video online without giving credit or getting permission.

This video would, also, serve as a great tutorial for students.  Tony, also, explains some methods to finding the right imagery for your presentations.

Creative Commons Explained

On my previous post about Creative Commons (please read below) I talked about imagery, video, and music available with permission for reuse and modification for students or anyone.  I have recently found this great video explaining what Creative Commons is as well as what each of the Creative Commons symbols mean that you will see with the media.

For instance:

This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/)

It is New Zealand's explanation, however will still apply to the US.

Here is another video from Creative Commons - A Shared Culture

Finding Legally "Reusable" Media Online

I've worked with many teachers who have their students use imagery online for their reports or podcasts.  However, they want pics that do not need permission from the owner to reuse or modify, and to teach their students this good practice.

One great way to do this is to use Creative Commons.  Creative Commons is an organization that works with image creators, video creators, audio creators, etc and provides the public with copyright license to reuse and modify the creators' work; and as with anything, with "some rights reserved" which will be subject to the creator of the product.

Students can utilize Creative Commons for gathering imagery, video, music and more that is legally allowable for reuse.  This is a great way to teach your students about piracy.


Where do students start?  This easy:


Students can search for Creative Commons material right in their Firefox web browser.  All of our MLTI Macbook devices come with a Creative Commons Search Bar.  In their current Firefox search bar, select the down-arrow.

Let's say we are studying rain forest animals and I want to find images of a jaguar.  I would select the Creative Commons Search and type jaguar in my search bar.  Creative Commons automatically directs you to their customized search site and offers several other sites that offer reusable media - like Fotopedia, Flickr and Google Images.  You can do the same with video as well.  You may find some of these resources blocked, however if it is something that you would like to use and would be approved by Administration, ask for use of the site.

 There is a bit of digging required depending on how uncommon your search is, however could result in some valuable material; and legal.



Here are a couple of other sites that offer reusable imagery:

• Ookaboo
• Pics4learning
• Ken Thomas

Royal Wedding Pics from Life.com

Life.com offers current event imagery from the best of the best in photography.  These galleries can be embedded right into your Moodle course for students to view even on your front page.  Simply, click on the main photo on their homepage; look for "link to" on the right-side menu; choose either Photo or Gallery; then copy the code that is available.

Place them in a "topic" section or place them in your sidebar as an HTML box.  For more information on how to do this, visit How Do I Embed HTML Code? and Adding HTML To My Moodle Course.  Here is an example below.