Photos for Class: Helping students find images

Another lesson assisting Year 7 students with their research and trying to get them to find and properly  attribute the images they want to use in their final presentation. They understand about copyright and creative commons but many are always looking for the quickest/easiest way to find something. We have had a few teaching moments about fair use of the internet resources using Google advanced search, CCsearch , Flickr advanced search or Flickr Storm, MorgueFileStockVault.net, and Photl.com (Free options may soon be available) etc. letting the boys explore the options. I have also used a nice little tool ImageCodr.org to attach Flickr images to my online resources and shown the boys how easy it is to use. Lately I have been showing the boys Photos for class. I read about it at the end of last year and it offers that easy access to appropriate images. This means that the students can spend their time creating rather than finding.

Photos for class

This is a search engine that searches the Flickr site for photographs that have Creative Commons licenses so students can use in class or on their homework. Once you have found images you like you can visit the Flickr original or download and reuse.

Photos for class2

When downloaded, the images come with appropriate attributions. This saves the boys from having to add this information themselves and so saves them time and makes it very easy, making it more likely that the information is included.

Photos for class3

Also useful is that the search filters out inappropriate images. If there is something that you have an issue with you can report it.

There is a guide about how they filter and how the citations  are organised.

The Photos For Class site “makes it as easy as possible to properly attribute photos, especially for printed or presented materials so that there is no worry about plagiarism or stolen work.”

When you click download a watermarked image is automatically generated. It contains the following:

  • Name of the author
  • Name of the photograph
  • A link to the original photo
  • The name and type of license along with a link to read it
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Useful links

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Useful links

Educational Postcard: ”Get students list by Ken Whytock, on Flickr
Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic License   by  Ken Whytock 

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Useful links

  • Europeana 1914-1918 – Explore stories It is a treasure trove of unique sources for anyone interested in WWI. Timely with the 100th anniversary upon us. The site offers access to digitized films from the period, institutional cultural heritage and official records alongside thousands of stories shared by the general public, illustrated with digital images of objects, letters, personal diaries, photographs, and other items from the period of the First World War.
  • Teacher Resources for Learning about Copyright and Fair Use ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning  Post from Ed tech and Mobile Learning Blog. “It is important we teach our students to be good digital citizens. They need to understand how to properly credit sources and documents they grab from Internet, and it is not always straightforward. The University of Texas offers a course entitled “Copyright Crash Course” that outlines in a very clear and eloquent language the different things we all need to know about copyright.” Links are given to a few important sections.
  • Legendary Lands: Umberto Eco on the Greatest Maps of Imaginary Places and Why They Appeal to Us | Brain Pickings “Celebrated Italian novelist, philosopher, essayist, literary critic, and list-lover Umberto Eco has had a long fascination with the symbolic and the metaphorical, extending all the way back to his vintage semiotic children’s books. Half a century later, he revisits the mesmerism of the metaphorical and the symbolic in The Book of Legendary Lands (public library) — an illustrated voyage into history’s greatest imaginary places, with all their fanciful inhabitants and odd customs, on scales as large as the mythic continent Atlantis and as small as the fictional location of Sherlock Holmes’s apartment.
  • Inside The Most Interesting Man In The World’s Personal Library [31 Photos] | The Roosevelts  ” Jay Walker made a lot of money starting Priceline.com. He spent his money collecting. The collection, dubbed the Library of Human Imagination, has grown into something epic that rivals any museum on Earth. the 3,600 square foot, three story facility features multilevel tiers, “floating” platforms, connecting stairways, glass-paneled bridges, dynamic lighting and is bursting at the seams with artifacts of all types. A truly amazing collection that celebrates human endeavour and preserves it for future generations.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Free music for student projects now on YouTube

I have been trying to teach the students good digital behaviours. When students are trying to create multimedia presentation we remind them about Creative Commons licences. When shown where to find images, sounds, videos that are allowed to be used they are more than happy to do the right thing. There are many times our students are looking for sounds or, more often, music to put the final polish on their multimedia project. There are a few I put onto a list available via our school intranet and linked to the sites. I often have to remind the boys about these sites so I was very pleased to learn the other day that YouTube is now offering music through their YouTube Audio Library. It is not a comprehensive library at the moment with about 150 royalty-free instrumental tracks people can use for free, indefinitely but it is a good start and on a site/platform that many students are very familiar with.

AudioLibrary-YouTube

The music embedded in the YouTube Audio Library is music that you can download to use in projects both online and offline. You can search the library of music according to:

  • Genre – Some of the genres you can choose from include: Alternative & Punk, Classical music, Country & Folk, Hip Hop & Rap, Jazz & Blues, Pop, Reggae and Rock.
  • Mood – Students are often interested in finding music for mood. Some of the moods represented musically include angry, bright, calm, dark, funky, happy, inspirational, romantic,and sad.
  • Instrument – Allows you to search for music according to the instrument being played in it. These include: Acoustic Guitar, Bass, Drums, Electric Guitar, Organ, Piano, Strings, Synth and Trumpet
  • Duration – Where you can search for clips ranging from 1to 25 minutes

You can listen to the tracks before downloading them as MP3 files. To download any tune you click on the arrow pointing downwards put on the line that has the title. You can also click on the star button next to it to add the tune to your favourite list. It really is very easy to use. I look forward to sharing it with our students next term.

AudioLibrary-Mood-download

There is also an opportunity to have a look at the most popular hits that people have downloaded by using the favourites list.