Creative Commons and Attribution

In the history classroom, I typically assign many projects for students to complete that require them to find images to include in their presentations. Students typically enjoy making PowerPoints, Adobe Sparks, Microsoft Sway presentations, and more. They always ask, “Do we need to cite the images?”

My response, “Nah. Information, yes. Images, no big deal.”

Wrong. I have been so wrong!

I should have been teaching them the proper way to cite images. I take the time to teach them how to properly cite information. Why did I view citing images differently?

One thing that I struggled with was how to find the licence to be sure that I am providing proper attribution to the photographer. I quickly learned that you have to do a little digging. Perhaps that was why I strayed away from teaching my students to properly cite images. I knew how to cite information correctly and feel comfortable with teaching those citations. I do not feel comfortable (yet!) with teaching citations for images. Solution: just try it! Teach it! If anything, I will be exposing my students to different forms of citations, which will better prepare them for college and the professional world.

One resource with images that was available to us was the Big Huge Labs site. I am already starting to think of ideas for projects that students can complete. I particularly like the magazine cover option. That particular resource would be great for students to use when studying different historical periods, such as World War II or The Civil Rights Movement. With the uncertainty of what our next academic year will look like, the Big Huge Labs site will be a great resource for students if we are continue with online instruction.

Editing images has always been fun. I took photography in high school and enjoyed manipulating images and creating works of art with the photos that I took. I even made my parents buy Adobe Photoshop for me!

In today’s super connected world and social media, editing images is a common occurrence. We edit and share our own images on apps like Instagram and VSCO. So, editing a creative commons image on a website like Pixlr and others was fairly easy and enjoyable.

One remaining question: After retrieving an image from a Creative Commons library that you manipulate using a photo editing cite, would you cite it differently?