As a teacher, I have to create a variety of educational content for my blogs, online courses and workshops. Images offer a great way of imparting information to my students. Some of the ways that I use images are -
- as section headers in my Moodle courses
- as a way to deliver content in a more interesting way
- as an icebreaker for new online students
- in video presentations to introduce a new topic
So, the question for anyone who creates educational content is where to find great images that can convey the thoughts we need to our students. As you may know, creating educational content does not involve having a huge budget for creating materials. In fact, most teachers create their content on their own time, with their own money and using their own expertise.
This is where public domain images come in handy. For teachers, public domain images are one of the best resources available for sprucing up and bringing life to course content. By definition, a public domain image is one that is meant for public use on or off the Internet without the need to pay a royalty, license or related fee.
The easiest way to find public domain images is to search Google Images by typing in a description of the image you are looking for. Then, in the upper right hand corner, click on the "Options" icon and then choose Advanced Search.
In the advanced search page, choose "usage rights". Here is a screenshot of what this looks like.
While a Google search will quickly bring you to a multitude of images about your topic, you may want to use a public domain image database. The nice thing about using a database is that the images are often organized in categories and are available for downloading in different sizes. While some of these databases do not require you to register, others may ask for you to create a free account using an email and a password.
Here is a brief list of some free PUBLIC DOMAIN image databases:
EduPic (http://edupic.net/)
Pixabay (http://www.pixabay.com)
Public Domain Pictures (http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/)
WikiMedia Commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)
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Remember Heath Information Services for your content development (offline, online), research and training needs. Contact me at: angela@heathinformationservices.com |
