Thing 3: Photo Fun

                                     

After reviewing several resources about the appropriate and fair use of online images, I was able to identify several ways in which students in my middle school program could use images responsibly in their work.  To begin, I think it would be important for students to individually go through the process of using the flow chart here to get a good idea of what is acceptable use of an online image. I would then allow students to go through this resource listing a number of sites where they could search appropriately for images for projects, google slides presentations, etc...  I examined some of the sites to see what would be available if I searched for topics that my students might cover in several of their content classes.  For example, for a unit on how power is used, I searched for photos showing different forms of protest on photosforclass.com and found a number of useful images. This would be an easy site for students to navigate without much guidance from a teacher. I did a test run on a few other sites and found the same result. 

Another way students in our school use images is when we do door decorating contests and in posters advertising school events and initiatives. Again, I tested some of the sites for images that could have been uses in our latest contest with the theme of Black History Month. Students would have had access to plenty of images for their doors that were responsibly used.  

A challenge in using these sites would be training students to avoid simply going to Google Images like they have been all along. It would take an agreement on the part of school staff that we would collectively teach students about this topic in the same way so that from class to class, there would be consistency in their use of images.