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This one feels like it is cheating, but it is the MOST powerful way to get copyright-free material for the classroom. Knowing how to use search operators might radically change your work efficiency. For example, if you need to create a PowerPoint on the Civil War, you could start from scratch and find images and text and important information. By using the search term "filetype:ppt" and adding the search topic "Civil War" afterwards, Google will only return links to actual PowerPoints already created on the internet. This search term can be used with any file type. If you are looking for an existing test over the civil war in Word, search for "filetype:doc Test 'Civil War'". This can literally save hundreds of hours of time and effort.

I re-located this resource, that has been around since the year 2000, while searching for AUDIO files for adding to multimedia presentations for but, the site also advertises that, "you can find over 1,000 pages of free resources, tutorials, PowerPoint templates and backgrounds, graphics, sounds for presentations and much more for everyday use and productivity." The sound clips are simple enough for students in grades 5 - 12 to use however, many of the other resources are probably more appropriate for educators. After brief teacher modeling, middle & high school students could easily click on the midi sound files, listen to the preview that opens in Windows Media Player, right-click on the sound title they wanted, "save-target-as" to a file, and insert the free sound clips into their multimedia presentations. Students will also appreciate the wide variety of clear-quality, relevant sounds, a few of which sound like renditions of background hip-hop/rap music that I believe they would enjoy like, "Dr. Tekno," "Nightfunk," and "R&B Bassbeat." In the "Terms of Use" the owner, Nan Shastry, states that "items marked 100% free" can be downloaded free for "personal or business or educational use" but users may not resell downloads, make available as downloads on your website, or link to items without prior permission. While the sound files and many other resources are 100% free, students who try to branch out and download many of the PowerPoint backgrounds or animated graphics will encounter zip file popups that ask/require them to evaluate "WinRAR" software for a 40-day trial before purchasing it, to continue using the download. Educators could mitigate this problem by distributing a list of preferred download link titles from the site that students could easily access without any difficulty or, by simply instructing them to click "cancel" or "close" on any of the downloads that require purchasing.

This is a royalty-free website. There are three levels of purchase, gold ($59.96), platinum ($99.95) and pro ($199.95). A school may share a license for this price. This site contains clip art, power point backgrounds, animations, sound effects, sound/music and video elements. Images and GIFs come in various sizes. Many can be downloaded with or without a background, so it doesn't have that square box around it. Spice up your blog or bring your power points to life with this service. This site is good for any subject, any age or any grade level.

OpenPhoto is a free source of stock photos that only require attribution. The photos are searchable and span many organized categories. Some of the photos are high quality, and others aren't quite what I'd call HD, but it's fairly easy to track down what you need. I see no reason why middle school and high school students couldn't use this site. Anytime they needed a picture for a PowerPoint or some other project they were working on, I could direct them to this site to get great photos that are easily attributed to the creators thanks to handy copy and paste instructions on the individual photo's site. I don't see many issues arising with this one. I'm hoping everything here is clean (haven't searched too deeply to ensure it's all school appropriate). Overall, it looks like an easy way to find pictures to add to presentations, projects, and other activities without infringing on copyright.

Animation Factory is one of my most favorite animation related websites. It contains a variety of .jpg, and .gif. Users can set up an account for free however, they will have to pay for a membership. Once they have access to the objects, the user is able to use graphics at will for their needed purpose. It is royalty free as the author is not expected, other than their membership fees, to make additional payments if in fact they make money from their website, project, etc. that they produce. The intended audience are professionals in a plethora of fields. There are graphics displayed that are related to business, technology, education, healthcare and a number of other fields. There are three levels of membership. A gold membership is 59.95 and you have access to Animated Clipart, Media Elements, and Tiled Backgrounds. A platinum membership is 99.95 and users have access to all tools on the Gold level and Power Clipart, PowerPoint Backgrounds, PowerPoint Templates, and Video Backgrounds. Lastly, the pro membership is 199.95. The user has access to all tools on the gold and platinum level, and access to Flash, HD Video Backgrounds, Sound Effects, Sound and Music, and Video Elements. Each membership payment is good for one year from the start date. The quality of the graphics is phenomenal and can be used continuously on website, reports and etc. due to the high resolution provided by the website's download tools.

Users of resources on this site are advised to refer to the policy, web site terms, and licensing pages: http://www.animationfactory.com/en/company/policies.html, http://www.animationfactory.com/en/company/terms.html, http://www.animationfactory.com/en/company/licensing.html

BusSongs is that one location (site) where you can go to find many childhood songs for your classroom. The songs can teach students about behavior, holidays, cultures, and many life skills. FCCLA students could use a song in a PowerPoint presentation to keep the students' attention or add them to a cd to use during instructional time. Some songs can be used for PTA meetings or graduation ceremonies.

The owners of this site acknowledge that some of the songs available on this site may be under a copyright protection (ie, these would be for the newer songs, not the older). Therefore, users are advised to communicate with the site to determine what rights protection there may be for music you intend to use. Read here for specific details: http://bussongs.com/about.php.

Soundbible.com is an audio source that provides copyright free sound effects and clips. It also provides royalty free sounds at only .10 per sound. This site would be great to explore if teaching a 10th grade world history or 11th grade U.S. history class. (It has sounds from specific war weapons/planes, etc.) However, it can be used with many other grades and students of varying abilities. It offers nature sounds, animal sounds, etc. These sounds can be used in a PowerPoint or other presentation and the sounds offered are great quality. Be sure to read the following before using their photos: http://soundbible.com/about.php .

This is a website designed for free downloads of a variety of types of sound. You can click on the sound tab and browse and find what you would like to download and it is free. This website can be used in an educational resource for middle school or high school age students doing a video project or PowerPoint project that will require background sound. Some difficulties I have found is the sound quality can vary between some of the sound clips. In order to download the sounds you must register an account you'll be able to begin. This could also be a difficulty for some students in a school setting depending on the school's firewall and if the student has an email. The tool I have found most useful with this site is the search bar and assisting you with finding the sound clips you want to hear or download.

This website is amazing. Once you sign up for a free account, you are able to download and use thousands of high quality images. Teachers can incorporate these pictures into their personal PowerPoints, Prezis, etc. or they can have their students use the pictures in projects. There are many beautiful landscape photos. This would be a great opportunity for 5th graders to gather pictures of different landforms and make a presentation using them.

This website has thousands of free images that are able to downloaded for free. Many of the images you will find on this site are high quality and well done. You can find an image for a variety of subjects. This website would be best used by students middle school or high school looking for images for a project or PowerPoint presentation. The difficulties a student might run into is the search engine used for this site. It can be very broad when looking for specific pictures. The best use of this website could be for a history class or science class. For example finding pictures for a WWII project can be done very easy for a student at the secondary level. A student would be able to find maps of where the war took place, famous images from the war, types of weapons used, types of planes, etc.

Boasting thousands of digital clip art images, Openclipart does cater to teachers and other working professionals. The collections are sorted for optimum utility. The best part is that the images are all copyright-free and in the public domain, which means that there are no restrictions. There are no perceived limits on usage; resources should be suitable for K-12 and beyond, and useful for Digital stories, Prezis, PowerPoint, imbedding in other virtual documents, and educational websites. Potential Solutions to Perceived Problems: The problems lie not with the photo repositories themselves, but rather lie in the educator's own ability to think creatively, and to work with raw digital materials. I can think of no better solution than for an educator to spend time examining how the available resources can be used to encourage a student to think about the subject matter. A teacher can plan for an elaborate lesson but discover there is a dearth of photo content; therefore, since time and money are not unlimited, the teacher would be wise to consider this before planning a lesson. Further, a teacher would be wise to search for as many resources as possible and add them to a list, as we have done for this assignment. Quality: B If you are looking for good clip art for no money, and with no restrictions, this collection seems much better than anything you will find packaged with a Microsoft product.

Soundzabound is website that has royalty free music for schools. offers a variety of music, audio themes, and sound effects for all levels of education. Such music can be used for podcasts, PowerPoint, videos, video yearbooks, digital storytelling, web design, and so much more. There are different types of license that can be purchased. A school for purchase a site license for teachers and students or a the district make a purchase for everyone in the district to use. Middle schools and high schools would benefit from this site because they can use such sounds to create a product for competitive events.

Can Stock Photo is a royalty free stock photography agency that offers professional stock images that are affordable and accessible to everyone. Over 10,000 top quality images are added each day from the world's best photographers and artists. You don't have to have an account or subscription. Business education teachers and students can use the images to create PowerPoint presentations or websites. All images are for non-commercial use only.

All images in this site are under International Copyright Protection. Prior to using images, users are advised to refer to the Terms and Conditions page, found here: http://www.canstockphoto.com/terms_conditions.php.

This online repository includes hundreds of copyright-free graphics that would be worthwhile for middle-high school students & educators to use to add a multitude of interesting "bells & whistles" to their word documents, multimedia presentations, or websites. In my 5th-8th grade Library Media Center, social studies students are currently completing PowerPoints presenting their research about assigned Middle Eastern countries. I can foresee allowing students who have finished adding all assigned subject content to their slides, use this site to add "spinning globe" bullets, horizontal rule section dividers in the shape of "International Flags" or "Palm Trees," and "Textured Sand" backgrounds. All of the graphics were easy to navigate to from a large table on the index page and everything I experimented with downloaded and inserted easily, the quality of the images was excellent, and many of the animations would be relevant for school assignments. In the "Terms of Use" section, the creators advertise that, "Bellsnwhistles.com graphics are free for your use and if you use them we ask that you PLEASE DOWNLOAD what you need…Do Not link to our graphics." I did not encounter anything on the site that required royalty fees or additional software to load before gaining access. The only problem educators might want to mention to students before using is to make sure they insert only school-appropriate graphics…while nothing on the site was unsuitable for student-viewing, there was a "Foaming Beer Mug" divider and "Dripping Blood" Halloween images that students would need to avoid downloading into projects.

FROM OLD BOOKS: The images here are mostly scanned at 1200dpi or higher, often up to 2400dpi; if you would like a high-resolution scan, just ask, either with email or using the Comment link on the page for the image you need. For non-commercial or educational use they are generally free, although a donation would be appreciated; you'd probably pay $100 or more per image if I put the images on a microstock site. For commercial use, give the author an idea of how you will use the image; they are not expensive, but they are also not free. This is a great resource for literature or reading teachers to use in class. History and Social Studies of all grade levels may find this a useful resource as well. The author provides a list of his books and offers about 3400 images. These images may be specific to one book, however they can be used for storyboards or posters for the classroom. They may also be used in powerpoint presentations, prezis, and video when the students are required to descibe their literature. One challenge that I found was in the website's design. It seems a bit wordy, but it is loaded with many images. The owner of the sites seems interested in making the resources available to educators while still asking for some limitations. Post 2 for UWG Photographers