Finding Creative Commons Images, Music and Video.
Before I start it’s worth knowing that some programs and apps now have a creative commons image search built in. You can search for copyright free images and insert them without leaving PowerPoint, Google Slides, Adobe Spark Post, Shadow Puppet EDU and many more. You can also refine searches in Google images and Bing images to only return images you have permission to use. In Google images search for your item and then click Tools>Usage Rights>Labelled for reuse. In Bing images click Filter>Licence> All Creative Commons. You might not see these options if you are using an iPad or other tablet and you might need to click ‘Request desktop site’ at the foot of the page.
It;s good practice to ask children to add a line of attribution to their work saying where a photo/piece of music/ video came from and if possible to name the user. The chances are your children won’t be using these images in a blog post but if they are they can add an embed code that attributes the image to the user. If you’re in any doubt about being able to use an image this infographic by might be useful.
Here are some great places to source ‘copyright free’ or creative commons material for children to re use in projects. You may want to check certain words on these searches before you let children use them. It’s unlikely but they may contain inappropriate images, just like most image searches.
Clip Art Library As the name suggests this is great for clipart. It’s really useful for finding objects and characters for Scratch games. I used to recommend OPenCliprt.org but this seems to have stopped working.
Copyright Free Music
YouTube Audio Library. You’ll need to be logged in to a Google account to use this.
Incompetech A brilliant site where you can search for music by genre, mood, length and more. No login required.
Free to use Video Footage
Videezy. Free HD Stock footage.
This can be great if you want to add footage to a green screen production such as and exploding volcano. We’ve also added a TV static screen to the end of a spooky performance poem. There is less of a choice then images though. The easiest way I’ve found to add this footage to children’s iPads is to download it to a PC/Chromebook and upload it to Google Drive. Children can then save it to the camera roll or import it into an app such as iMovie.
Have I missed any out? Please tweet us or leave a comment below.
