Whenever I assign any sort of project that requires my students to use pictures, many of them jump on Google Images and start searching away. My problem with just jumping onto Google Images to find pictures is that not all of the pictures are free to use. Many of them are copyrighted and are not labeled for Creative Commons use. Yes we can argue fair use since we are in education, but instead of having to argue why not just create our own archive of pictures for students to use? It’s not like we carry around a camera with us all day right? (Please note the sarcasm).
Over the past few months I have been working on creating an archive of pictures that I can use for my presentations. Anytime I see anything that looks remotely interesting (Like the Pinterest inspired four post ghosts that my Mother-In-Law created) or anything that I think I could use as a background, I take a picture of it and upload it to Flickr directly from my iPhone. The whole process takes me about 2-3 minutes max and ultimately creates an archive of pictures that my students and I can use without having to jeopardize our good digital citizenship habits. To help organize my pictures I have created a set called “Presentation Backgrounds” (My archive of presentation backgrounds). This whole process has also inspired me to be more creative with my photography and have some fun learning a new skill.
-Ryan