Visual Communication Tools
From memes to emojis, so much of our communication is visual. Using images in your digital content not only adds interest but can support and enhance your message. Below you'll find some great tools for both students and teachers to use when searching for images to use, being mindful of copyright and digital citizenship.
Teacher Tools
Pixabay
Pixabay is a community-sourced database of images and illustrations. Most are licensed for free commercial use without attribution but be sure to check the license requirements for each image.
Unsplash
Similar to Pixabay, Unsplash has over 150,000 contributing photographers who share their work freely. All photos are free for commercial and non-commercial use alike without attribution.
Noun Project
Find an icon for everything. The Noun Project is another community-sourced database, this time of single-color icons. All attribution information is included in the image when you download it.
Student Tools
Photos for Class
While no online image filtering process is perfect, Photos for Class uses both the filter built into Flickr as well as their own proprietary filter to keep search results as safe as possible. The citation is also automatically added to the image when downloaded.
Pics4Learning
An oldie but goodie. Pics4Learning is an old standby, but still a great, safer choice for students to find images to use in projects.
Google Image Search Tools
Since we know students are going to use Google to find images, let's teach them some tips and tricks to help. Try showing students the Tools menu where they can limit their search results to images that have been labeled for reuse. Google Image Advanced Search lets them set even more search parameters.
