The Importance of Crediting Images: Simple Machines Review

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Cayusa

I think Thomas was trying to ask a simple question as we reviewed for the simple machines test.  Basically he asked, "Did you take those pictures?"  I put together a presentation for the review.  The idea was to use an anchor image and insert the key-concept text to represent the information.  As we moved from sub-topic to sub-topic the change of image is intended to signify a change in conversation.

1. I wanted the images to act as a signal so students would have an easier time following along.
2. 75% of our sensory receptors are dedicated to vision.  I hope that as students use this presentation for review, they associate the image with specifics from the discussion.

The truth was that I went to sleep with over 20 tabs open. By the time I finished the presentation it was late.  But, I went through the trouble to search for images for public use, I might as well take the time to credit the images.




Creative Commons is an organization designated to help people legally maximize digital creativity.  The service issues copyright permission under a "some rights reserved" approach.  Their mission is to maximize sharing, innovation, and creativity.  An artist can upload their work to the web and allow others to use it for other non-profit purposes.  In many cases, the original work can be modified with the simple agreement that they're given credit for their work.  To me, this seems more than fair.  There are so many talented individuals out there who are actively sharing their photographs.  The least I can do, is take a minute to copy and paste credit where credit's due.

Simple Machines PDF

The website I use to find licensed images is compfight.com.  Compfight is a Flickr search engine that displays results as a mosaic.  You can specifically choose to search CC licensed images only.  If that's not appealing enough, there's a "safe search" option that helps keep content free of offensive material.  Google has just began offering a CC filter on google images under the "search by subject" option.

My explanation immediate led a few students to ask about Google Images.  It seems that our students are so used to taking images from google that they were shocked to hear that using a watermarked picture was actually illegal.  Which, brought us to fair use.  It's important for students to understand that fair use is not a right, it's a defense.  If a student uses a copyrighted photograph in a report, it is still copyright infringement.  If somebody wanted to take them to court, they could argue that they were using it for educational purposes only and they would win.  However, even if they're using copyrighted material, they should still be citing it, which came as a surprise.

The licence I chose for this blog is: Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-a-Like.  It says that anyone can use anything from this blog as long as they credit it, they're not using it for marketing, and if they use anything from this blog, they must allow others to use their work.

Whether students continue to use copyrighted images for school doesn't concern me.  But, they should at least be aware of their actions and aware that there are plenty of wonderful artists who want people to use their work legally.