EduTechie Lisa: Creative Commons

This week I learned all about copyright laws and a great, useful site called Creative Commons. Creative Commons allows me to use photos for class without violating any laws, as long as I properly site the source and follow the proper guidelines/have the proper intent for usage. It made me wonder how many times I may have used images without giving any regard to the source. I never thought twice about this when it came to images, although I teach my students a unit on citing sources for a research paper. Now that I know about Creative Commons, I intend to use it and to properly give credit where credit is due. I also created my own Flickr page.

I found the following picture using Flickr's Creative Commons:

Photo Attribution: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3662/3408649524_74f5257e0c.jpg

Original Image: "Playing REAL Miniature Golf"

By: JD Hancock

Released under attribution license

Licensed by: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

I thought this would be a neat photo to use when introducing iTouches to my students at the beginning of the year. We have to go over rules and how to appropriately use the iTouch, so this photo would add a bit of humor to that lesson. I can see many other uses for photos in my classroom as well. We could look at photos as writing prompts, photos of famous authors/poets and where they grew up, photos that go along with the themes they are learning, etc. The possibilities for using photos in the classroom are endless. It's great to know I can now do so legally giving credit where credit is due.

The next photo is one that I took on a trip to Las Vegas this past summer. I uploaded it to Flickr for the first time licensed it with Creative Commons. Here is my Flickr page