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Guide: Royalty-Free Materials and Free Tools

Royalty-Free (RF) refers to the use of copyrighted or intellectual property without the requirement to pay royalties or license fees.  The opposite would be rights-managed which would require payment.

Remember that, of course, the best source of images is your own digital camera. You can develop your own image library using family, friends, pets, and the stuff of everyday life. These are often much more compelling than any you could find or buy.  And there are resources/tools below for recording your own musical compositions.  One-of-a-kinds!

One tip before you begin collecting RF materials from the sources below.  Begin a Diigo list and save each url to that list.  Add tags that will help your distinguish them.  If you download the file, be sure to include the creator’s name and the Creative Commons license in the file name.  Also, do you know how ridiculous it seems to add a long list of links at the end of a slide show or video.  The links aren’t live and no one will want to copy them down.  Better to follow a model recommended by the College of Ed’s own Bethany Smith with an attribution on each slide and a Diigo list link provided on the final slide.  Thanks to Bethany for sharing a great solution!

Heads-Up to the Wary and Wise:  Make no assumptions about Creative Commons licensing.  You could easily follow a link that directs you to a page of materials that aren’t licensed under Creative Commons.  Creative Commons advises that you follow the link to see what specifications there may be and if still in doubt, contact the site and/or the copyright owner.  Also, there could be fine print for many of these services that provide free materials.  Be sure to check it out.  It would be a shame to create a project only to receive a “cease and desist” note from a copyright owner.

I’ve included an easy and effective way to add attributions to images your blog in the Guide to Conversational, Multimedia Blogging.

Images, Sounds, Music, Video

Creative Commons Search

 

Images

“Finding Free Images for Your Classroom” — Teacher Jennifer Carey shares some important sources of free images, explains Creative Commons, and encourages us to model and teach our students to honor those who share images/videos with proper attribution. Plus she reminds us that we should share of our creative work in return.

Stock.xchng http://www.sxc.hu, only requires you to sign up and become a member, creating a username and password. Many of their images are royalty free, but read first to be sure (some may have certain limitations). The nice thing about this site is that their images are shared by users so don’t always look like a traditional “stock” image.

iStockphoto http://www.istockphoto.com is a subscription-based photography business.  Prices seem very reasonable and if you’re registered you can often download the free image of the week to add to your library.

Flickr Creative Commons There are usually hundreds if not thousands of royalty-free images found here with a search.  Be careful to note the category of the license for the images you choose.  You’ll see the explanation for the four types of licenses on the far right at the top of the search page.  Be sure to honor the requests that each license specifies.  You may have or will soon have images here yourself and you’ll appreciate others respecting your wishes of how your intellectual property may be used.

Compfight is a search engine for “visual inspiration and free stock photos.” Observe type of Creative Commons licensing carefully and honorably. CogDog aka Alan Levine swears by Compfight and explains why . . .

Morguefile offers free images for many uses including remixes.

Dreamstime — royalty-free images for purchase, and, in some cases, free of charge.

 

Sound/Music

http://incompetech.com/  How does Kevin McCloud do it?  Amazing range of music. Great feature is the “choose your music by mood.”

http://kahvi.org/  provides free electronic music licensed under Creative Commons. Please note any requirements for attribution as you select music. As educators, we can help Kavhi achieve its goal: making “sound a power that really can change the world.”

http://www.freeplaymusic.com/ Actually good music for free. Read the licenses to see which may be remixed.

GarageBand  This is an application (produced by Apple) that allows you to produce your own audio tracks. If you’re a Windows user, you might try Mixcraft.

Best Online Sites for Creating Music — Tools online for actually creating and recording music.

Free Sound Collaborative of people who love sounds and sharing them.

 

Free Tools

 

Audacity Free audio editor and recorder

PhotoStory is a simple-to-use audio-slide show tool for PCs-only. Sorry, not for Macs.

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) — challenging but rewarding, in more ways than one.  This tool will enable you to do some serious editing similar to PhotoShop, only for free.  Do remember that NCSU students have free access to PhotoShop through the Virtual Computing Lab.

 

Web 2.0 Tools

Many of these are “one-off” tools or tools that will enable you to create conveniently with no real skill sets added. Not recommended for stretching your digital storytelling tools but could certainly be helpful as classroom tools and easy introductions for students.

Animoto for Education Cool music video-production. Free upgrade for educators.

For an animated style:
Create cartoon images to use in iMovie or MovieMaker with:
Toondoo

Choose from cartoon characters to make movies:
Xtranormal (free access is limited now)
GoAnimate

*50+ Ways to Tell a Story — Cogdog aka Alan Levine collects tools and resources for telling stories.

© 2013 Creative Inquiry

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