Need Photos for Your Blog Posts

Check Flickr's Creative Commons to find photos you can freely use on your blog according to the licensing restrictions. Some are free to use unaltered, whereas other can be altered. For most you need to attribute the source, and Flickr makes this easy. If you already have a Flickr account, and want to stockpile photos to use in the future, you can save them as favorites or in a gallery. You don't need a Flickr account, however, if you just want to grab some photos occasionally. Simply use the Flickr Creative Commons to get what you want on as needed basis.

Recently. Flickr wrote a post celebrating the 5th Anniversary of its Flickr Commons. Check the post for information on how to use the Commons to find photos. Here is an example of a photo I found there today that struck me of interest simply because it's eye catching. I used the embed code to place both the photo and attribution easily into this blog post.

 

cc licensed ( ) flickr photo shared by National Maritime Museum

Here is a photo that I found that spoke to my teaching philosophy especially when bringing technology into the classroom.

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by gcouros

Here is what the attribution boxes look like in Flickr for photos that can be shared with attribution. You have two choices.

• Method 1: copy the embed code (Attribution HTML), which will copy both the picture and the attribution into HTML screen (see the html option in the Blogger toolbar) 
• Method 2: Copy the attribution information (Attribution Text), which you can then simply copy in your blog after you have inserted the photo that you have downloaded and inserted. 

Illustrations below: Attribution (HTML) or Attribution (text)

Smartboard and Smart Notes Info

I recently came across two excellent posts on a blog about use of the Smartboard and some interactive activities in Smart Notes should you have that installed. Here are links to find the information:

• 5 Cool Tricks on the Smartboard--this is helpful even if you don't have Smart Notes installed.
• Interactive Activities in Smart Notes--describes 14 interactive activities covering a variety of subject areas.

Let us know if these two posts are helpful to you, and share any other ideas you have for using the Smartboard and activities on it that you find helpful to student learning. 

Thanks to Jen Deyenberg for posting this information on her blog.