Digital image libraries are essential to today’s teachers and students. Yet while stock image sites such as Shutterstock, iStock, and Getty Images offer an impressive selection of high-quality images and vector illustrations, these sites are typically beyond the budget of most school districts. 

Fortunately, the image and clip art sites below provide an extensive supply of moderate- to high-quality visuals for cost-conscious schools. Most of these sites are completely free, and most have a clear license/FAQ page explaining what uses are allowed or prohibited. 

15 Sites for Finding Images and Clip Art for Education

1. Find Icons
   A comprehensive source of more than 500,00 free vector icons and icon packs that allows users to search by keyword, size, style, color, or popularity. Bonus features include an image converter and discount codes for the stock image site iStock. 
2. Flickr Commons: The Commons
   The Commons, from the photo-sharing site Flickr, serves as a free catalog of the world’s public photos with no known copyright restrictions, contributed by dozens of government and academic bodies. Comments from Flickr members provide context and additional information for many images. Safesearch option available. 
3. FreePhotoBank
   This stock photo site offers hundreds of free stock images, all having a Creative Commons Attribution alone license. The pictures of FreePhotoBank are free to download, use, and modify with attribution. Search by image category tiles, such as buildings, flowers, or animals. 
4. Freepik
   With photos, vector images, Photoshop (PSD) files, customizable icons, easy-to-edit illustrations, and a beta online template editor, Freepik is a one-stop shop for free images and image tools. Free and premium content.
5. Gratisography
   Gratisography is a great resource for creative and quirky stock photos and vector images, highlighting unusual finds such as “Walking Hands,” “Scared Man,” and “Rhino Party.”  It's not only fun to browse, but also provides a clear, plain-language explanation of what users can and can’t do with the photos. 
6. Kaboompics
   A professional-looking site featuring free high-quality photos in diverse categories, from lifestyle to technology to healthcare. A nifty perk is that each photo includes a free downloadable complementary colors palette. 
7. KIdaha.com
   A fun, kid-focused clip art site featuring human and monster characters. Paid and free content. 
8. NegativeSpace
   A stylish and professional-looking site offering a wide variety of free, high-resolution Creative Commons CC0 photographs as well as free virtual backgrounds for videoconferencing and remote teaching. Be sure to check out the awesome abstract and outer space photos!
9. OpenClipArt
   One of the oldest free clip art sites offers a collection of more than 160,000 vector graphics, all in the public domain. Download as PNG or SVG files. Includes a handful of NSFC (Not Safe For Classroom) works. Artistic students or teachers can create an account and upload their own artwork.
10. Pexels
    A top resource not only for free stock images, but also free stock videos. Pexels hosts photo and video challenges for multiple categories, with professional photography equipment awarded to winners. Create a free account to collect your favorites and contribute your own images and videos. 
11. Photos For Class
    This education-focused site provides everything teachers and students need to find and use Creative Commons photos for school assignments. The four-step filtering process ensures that all images are appropriate for kids—and they make it easy to properly attribute photos.
12. Pics4Learning
    A safe, curated image library for classroom assignments, school websites, or any education-related project, Pics4Learning’s images cover a diverse spectrum of subjects, from American Sign Language to Fractals to Weather. Contribute your own JPEG or PNG images. 
13. Pixabay
    In just ten short years, Pixabay has grown to be one of the best-known and most comprehensive image sharing sites. Here visitors can explore and download collections of photos, illustrations, vector images, videos, and even music. All are free to download and free to use under the Pixabay license, which is a modified  Creative Commons CC0 license. Pixabay shines in another way as well—its blogs and forums keep users apprised of the latest news and tips to make the most of the site. 
14. Unsplash
    Thousands of free, sometimes ordinary—but often eye-popping—images include categories such as nature, current events, technology, and many more suitable for education use. All are free to download and use according to the Unsplash License. A fun feature for contributors is the “Made With Unsplash” page, which showcases creative remixes of its images. Unsplash provides strong support for its contributors, so it's a great place for young photographers to get started sharing their work. 
15. Vector Characters  
    A relatively simple site, Vector Characters focuses on character-based vector art in categories such as man, woman, child, robot, etc. For adding a touch of whimsy or humor to any school project, check out the Fruit Vector, Monster Vector, and Animal Vector categories. Free and premium content. 

• Put to the test—3 Image Editing Apps for Tablets
• How to Use a Document Camera for Remote Learning

PicCollage - Photo Collage Maker & Picture Editor

 Versatile, intuitive, engaging collage maker yields impressive designs 

Pros: Powerful, in-app photo editor and layout tools allow students to create custom, pro-like visuals.
Cons: Lots of in-app ads and a watermark in free version; sharing features default to public.
Bottom Line: With some privacy setup, and possibly upgrading to the paid version, this can be an excellent design tool for creating custom collages, teaching graphic design, layout, and photo editing.

Read more here.

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly. 

By Common Sense Education

NASA has a huge image, video and audio file library that you can do public search, download or embed the out-of-this-world files. We can do the search using keywords across more than 60 collections with a treasure trove of more than 140,000 files. We can also embed the content to your blog, lms or website. It is a living website, where new and archival images, video and audio files continually are being added. The students can also display the metadata associated with images.

[Mystery Animal Game By Google]

If you are planning on a lesson about aeronautics, astrophysics, Earth science, human spaceflight, and more, this is a great resource that we can use or recommend our students to check.

cross-posted at ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org

Özge Karaoglu is an English teacher and educational consultant in teaching young learners and teaching with web-based technologies. She is the author of Minigon ELT book series, which aims to teach English to young learners through stories. Read more of her ideas about teaching English through technology and Web-based tools at ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org.

A couple of days ago, I shared the great news that Flipgrid is now completely free for educators and it got me thinking:

“What other tech stuff can I get for free?”

I started poking around, asked some questions, did a little reading, reviewed some old History Tech posts, and came up with a list. And thought you might like a peek:

Digital storytelling tools

I love Canva and the free version is simple yet powerful enough to create all sorts of cool products.

Adobe Spark – I love Adobe Spark even more. Videos, quick and easy to create websites, and social media graphics all in one shiny package. What’s not to like?

Productivity suites

The gold standard in my book is G Suite for Education. And I know that you already know about Google Docs. But it’s more than just Docs – be sure you check out all the goodies. Slides, Sheets, Forms, Notes, Classroom, Drawing, Keep, My Maps, Drive, add-ons, Chrome browser extensions. It’s all tied together and it’s a beautiful thing.

But you might also want to look at something called LibreOffice. You get six programs that look and feel a lot like MS Office plus it can open, edit, and save in MS Office formats.

And maybe play around with Dropbox Paper. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles but it can be pretty handy. It connects with Slack and plays nice with Microsoft stuff.

Free online storage

Speaking of Dropbox, you did know that this online storage tool gives you 2 GB online storage for free? And gives you more when you recommend others to sign up for a Dropbox account?

And we’ve already mentioned Google Drive. If you’re a G Suite Education user, you get as much storage as you want. Store as much stuff there as you want. But . . . don’t forget, your school basically owns and controls access to all of it. It’s nice to have some off-site Google storage, so be sure to set up your own personal Google account. You get 5 GB of free online storage and you can buy more storage as needed for basically nothing.

And technically it’s not free cause you’re paying $100 a year for it but as an Amazon Prime member, you get 5 GB of Amazon Cloud Drive space for free and unlimited photo storage at no additional cost. So two day shipping, access to videos / music, AND free storage.

Photo editors

We can’t afford Photoshop and the learning curve is pretty steep. So what else is there? Start with Photoshop Express Editor. And then explore GIMP, Fotor, and Pixler. And for super simple, you might try Luna Pic.

Sound editors

If you are looking for a free sound editing tools, you could probably start and end with Audacity. Free and easy-to-use open source, it can record live audio and computer playback. But you might also check out Ocenaudio, a bit simpler and less complex tool.

Content curation platform

Wakelet is a super simple tool to use and one of my new favorites for not just curation but sharing, digital storytelling, collaboration, and writing prompts.

Flipboard has been my go-to curation tool for years. Customizable, searchable, able to create personalized and sharable link lists with mobile app and browser-based versions. I love this.

LiveBinders are virtual classroom binders that exist online for everyone to access. Create binders so students can quickly find resources materials without having to ask. You can also organize materials based on curriculum, category, and classroom timelines.

Books

Try Overdrive, which connects you to your local library or academic institution. Use the free app and your library card, and you’re entitled to any number of audiobooks and Kindle ebooks.

If you’re interested in classic literature, LibriVox specializes in public domain works.

If you’re looking to implement electronic textbooks, Project Gutenberg is a great place to start. They offer over 54,000 eBooks available for download, all free for students and teachers alike. Find textbooks on every subject, older literature with expired copyrights, and audio books galore.

EPIC is basically an on-demand digital library with over 25,000 books and videos perfect for kids between the ages of five and twelve. Some have audio components, allowing your kiddos to listen as they follow along as words and sentences are highlighted. Readers can click on unfamiliar words and get definitions and pronunciations. You can also get mobile apps across all devices as well as the traditional website.

Cause free is good.

cross posted at glennwiebe.org

Glenn Wiebe is an education and technology consultant with 15 years' experience teaching history and social studies. He is a curriculum consultant for ESSDACK, an educational service center in Hutchinson, Kansas, blogs frequently at History Tech and maintains Social Studies Central, a repository of resources targeted at K-12 educators. Visit glennwiebe.org to learn more about his speaking and presentation on education technology, innovative instruction and social studies.

Sumopaint

Impressive, easy-to-use tool for creating and editing images

Pros: Sumopaint is free, easy to use, and mimics many of the editing features found in more expensive image applications.

Cons: Some options are only available in the paid version, and there’s no filter for gallery comments, so kids could potentially find inappropriate content.

Bottom Line: Sumopaint can spark students’ creativity, encourage them to be artistic, and provide them with new, image-related tech skills.

[Free Platform Provides Simple Way to Discuss & Analyze Videos]

Read more.

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

By Common Sense Education

Pedagogy is about the techniques, methods and strategies teachers use to facilitate learning for their students. Pedagogical Documentation is about documenting in order to do just that: facilitate learning for our students. Heutagogy is centered around self-motivated and self-directed learning. Heutagogical Documentation is about documentation in order to become more self-aware and to fuel our motivation to learn as well as support us in making decision of what we want/need to learn next.

My work and research centers around documentation OF, FOR and AS learning. I believe when we make documentation part of our learning process, we become more aware of details and nuances, we reflect deeper, we learn more about ourselves as learners and make thinking and learning visible that otherwise would have been hidden under the surface. This is not done as an add-on, but becomes deeply ingrained in the learning process.

I would like to invite you to the 1-DayBlue Photo Challenge, a challenge to become meta cognitively aware of the process of documentation and how it changes the way you view your surroundings, look more in detail at contrasts, similarities, meanings, changes, trends, groupings, status quo, the proverbial box, creativity, etc.

Here is how it works:

1. Choose one specific day for the challenge (24 hours)
2. Take time to look for and notice all of the blue in the world around you.
3. Take (capture) as many photographs as you like, but remember that you can only post one photograph that you believe best defines blue in your world. (Be aware of how often you you think about the color blue? How you take into consideration that you will have other people seeing your “Photo of Blue”? How is the photograph and the color blue connected to your life?,etc.)
4. By the end of your day, upload and share your photograph to Twitter or Instagram, using the hashtag #documenting4learningblue
5. Add a comment to the post that explains why this representation of blue is important to you. Reflect how participating in the challenge made you more aware of blue and in what way.
6. Optional: Extend and amplify your experience by writing a blog post, reflecting on your experience of noticing blue, taking images of blue, filtering all images of blue and then selecting the ONE image you shared on social media. How can you relate your experience with documenting AS learning? How did the thinking of “documenting all things blue” as you were looking for and photographing blue deepen your understanding of blue and what it means in connection to your life? (Please leave the link to your blog post in the comment section below)

cross posted at langwitches.org/blog

Silvia Tolisano is a Curriculum21 faculty member, author of the book Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators and founder of the Around the World with 80 Schools project. Read more at http://langwitches.org/blog.

• My favorite tools for creating infographics include Canva, EduBuncee, Easel.ly, Tackk, Piktochart, and Visme. Canva, Buncee, Tackk, and Easel.ly have apps for creating infographics and pics on your iPad. Tackk is available on any device. Grafio is a free app for creating infopics (iOS).
• I’ve been having a lot of fun creating quote pics with these free typography iOS apps- Word Dream, Wort Swag, Retype, Aviary (iOS & Android), Pixlr (iOS & Android), BeFunky (iOS & Android), and Image Chef (iOS & Android).

10 Better Ways to Add Text to #Images from Presentation Panda

Current 2015 Goals

30 Goals Cycle 6

cross posted at teacherrebootcamp.com

Shelly Terrell is an education consultant, technology trainer, and author. Read more at teacherrebootcamp.com.