The Ins and Outs of the ⓒ

I'm not going to lie to you, I'm that person who would do the simple Google Images search for just about every single project since elementary school. I would just hit search and copy and paste whatever image I liked best without looking back. Now I understand that although those images are out there, they aren't free to use. There are some logistics that I've recently learned about that are important for students in our digital age to learn about before becoming an Image Thief...like I did.

One of the most important and easy-to-use tools I've learned about is Creative Commons. This website makes it just as simple as Google Images once did for me to find images that are allowed to be used for purposes such as posting on this blog like I'm doing now. However, this is not to discourage the use of Google Images as this is still a valuable tool with just a little bit of reconfiguration. 

It's so important that teachers are teaching their students about what copyrights are and how to use them. For example, in searching children and computers on Google Images and configuring the page to find images that are "labelled for noncommercial reuse and motivation" I found this image of a baby using a computer. Upon looking further I found the images source and was confirmed that I could use this image and that no attribution was required. However for the purposes of this blog post, I will be giving attribution regardless.

Pixabay. (2012, March 18). Baby Computer [Online Image].
Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/baby-boy-child-childhood-computer-84626/

Furthermore, in using the Creative Commons website I did the same search of children and computers and found the image shown below. On the Creative Commons, you also have to do some reconfiguration of your search by clicking on "Any license" and instead choosing "All Creative commons".

Silfverberg, M. (2006, May 16). On the edge [Online Image].
Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/miikas/

Throughout searching these web sites as well as in class this week, I learned that the Internet has a vast amount of information on it - including pictures - but not all of this information is free for use WITHOUT attributing as to where you go it from. That little ⓒ that I have seen my whole life has a much bigger significance to me now than it ever did. With that being said, being a teacher in the types of classrooms I will be apart of in the 21st century, it is more important now than it ever has been to teach my students about the ⓒ and what it truly means, and how to use it.