Who used to see the work you created at school?

For many of us, the audience was small — maybe just the teacher, a few classmates, or family members (if the work didn’t end up crumpled at the bottom of a school bag!).

Today, things are very different. Students can share their work with a wide and varied audience through blogs and digital portfolios.

That’s an exciting opportunity — but how do you actually find that audience? Publishing online doesn’t automatically mean people will see it.

In this post, we’ll explore six effective ways to help your students connect with a genuine audience for their blog posts or online creations.

What Are The Benefits Of An Authentic Audience?

An authentic audience is powerful. When students know someone beyond the teacher will see their work, they can be motivated to push themselves and work harder.

This is something Clive Thompson wrote about in Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better.

Alan November is also well-known for suggesting,

“Stop saying hand it in, start saying publish it.” This paradigm shift from an audience of one to an audience of the world will inspire more students to achieve up to their potential, while instilling a life-long passion for genuine learning.

Making schoolwork purposeful can really impact student motivation and engagement.

Furthermore, when students have an audience for their blog posts, readers can provide further information, opinions, suggest resources, seek answers to questions and so on. This can drive a cycle of further learning and development.

The Role Of The Teacher

In the past, the teacher was the audience. Now, the teacher can help their students find their own audiences.

This doesn’t have to be a daunting process. You can start small and over time build up to establishing global audiences that can offer diverse perspectives.

Let’s go through six options for finding an audience for students’ blog posts, starting with the simplest options.

1) Fellow Classmates

If all or some of the students in your class have their own blog, one of the best starting points is to encourage the students to be an audience for each other.

Teach students about the give and take nature of blogging and being part of an online community. This involves producing content, reading content, commenting, reflecting, and perhaps even using insights from others to construct new blog posts.

You might do this informally and just ask your students to choose a classmate’s blog to read and comment on.

Alternatively, you might like to set up a more structured arrangement where students work in small peer groups to mentor one another. For example, some teachers create blog mentor groups where students are assigned to read and comment on each other’s posts regularly.

If you’re using a class management tool like My Class, you can even generate participation reports to track which students are engaging with their peers.

Many teachers also find success with peer editing activities, where students provide feedback on drafts before publishing — helping to build both confidence and writing skills.

2) Family Members

Parents and family members can offer a ready-made audience for student work, however, some education and ongoing encouragement is very important.

In 2017, we published a Guide to Involving Parents with Blogs.

Here are some key points:

• Family members won’t be willing or able to get involved in blogging if they don’t know anything about it. Education is key.
• You can try offering information about the blogs and how to comment via a printed navigation guide, pages on your class blog, emails, newsletters, an information evening, a how-to video, Family Blogging Afternoons, or Family Blogging Month.
• Regular encouragement throughout the year will ensure family members don’t forget about their role as an audience member.
• Particularly enthusiastic volunteers could become reps who help get others in the community involved.

Your ready-made audience doesn’t only consist of parents, of course. There may be other family members, including grandparents, who would love to become part of your blogging community but just need guidance or encouragement.

3) Team Blogging

Another great way to help your students build their audience is to form reciprocal relationships with other blogging classes near or far.

How many other classes you connect with is up to you. You might decide to just team up with one other class, although a popular choice is to collaborate with a group of four classes that take turns reading and commenting on one another’s blog posts.

To get the most out of team blogging, you want to make a genuine commitment to read and comment on one another’s blog posts over a set period of time, e.g., a month, a semester, or a school year.

Often, the focus class is rotated each week. So if you have four classes, as demonstrated in the diagram below, each class will receive comments for one week and then write comments for the other three weeks.

Where to find classes to team up with?

Firstly, decide whether you’re looking for a class where every student has their own blog or there is just one class blog.

Next, you’ll want to consider what age range would be suitable to work with.

Twitter (X) is a great place for teachers to connect and find classes with similar blogging projects.

Once you’ve found a class that looks like a good match, reach out to the teacher via Twitter or by commenting on a post on their class blog. They might even know other classes interested in joining in.

4) Projects

There are a number of structured projects you can join to help your students connect with others, build their network, and find an authentic audience for their work.

Here are a couple of great options:

• The Global Read Aloud (A 6 week project held during October/November. Classes connect around shared readings of books)
• ePals (Find ‘pen pals’ in other classes around the world)

5) Your PLN

There are many reasons why it’s great to have your own PLN (Professional Learning Network) as a teacher. The graphic below summarizes just some of the reasons. These are explained in more detail in this post. 

If you’re not familiar with PLNs or how to go about becoming a connected educator, we have a free, self-paced course that can help.

Having your own PLN is a key way to also help your students connect with others and start developing their own networks.

What would this look like in terms of helping your students find an audience for their work? Here are just a few examples:

• Publish a tweet to share your student blog posts and invite comments.
• Reach out to someone who works in a field that your student is interested in to help extend their learning further.
• Set up a Facebook group with members of your global PLN who are interested in sharing students’ work and helping to find authentic audiences.

6) Make Sites Findable On The Web

Outside of education, most people land on a website because Google sent them there.

For older or more advanced students, you might start having a discussion about finding an audience organically. Together you could explore how people who publish online outside of education go about this.

Students might even start creating content that people will be looking for in Google. To aid this process, you could:

• Ensure your blog is indexed in search engines like Google (Dashboard > Settings > Reading > Allow search engines to index this site). Note: this is only available with Edublogs Pro and CampusPress accounts to prevent misuse by spammers.
• Install the Simple SEO plugin and type in a ‘Meta Description’ about the site and posts that will show up in Google results.
• Assign posts to tags and categories to help readers find what they’re interested in reading.
• Use Google Analytics to see who’s visiting your site, where they find your site, and what they’re most interested in. This data could provide inspiration for content that you’d like to update or expand upon. Learn about setting up Google Analytics for your Edublogs Pro or CampusPress account here.

As an active voice on the web, students can become part of rich conversations that are much wider than their classroom. They can learn that their insights and ideas are valuable.  

Conclusion

Helping your students find an authentic audience for their work might take a little time and effort to set up but the rewards will be worth it!

Students can learn to think beyond grades and pleasing the teacher, and start contributing their voice, knowledge, and resources to a global community.

How do you find an audience for your students’ work online? If you have any tips or ideas to share, we’d love to hear from you!

Related Reading

50 New Blog Post Ideas For Students

My Class: Student Blogging Made Easy

10 Ways To Introduce Your Students To Blogging

There are countless fantastic tools available within Google Drive — including Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Forms, and Google Sheets.

All of these tools are free, web-based, and used daily by people across classrooms, homes, and workplaces worldwide.

One tool you may not have explored yet is Google Drawings.

You might have heard of it but wondered what it’s actually useful for.

If you’re a blogger, Google Drawings can be the perfect tool for creating visuals that make your site stand out.

And for teachers or students, it’s a brilliant way to express learning in a creative and engaging way.

This post explains:

What is Google Drawings?

How to create a Google Drawing

How to embed a Google Drawing into a blog post or page

Ideas For Using Google Drawings In The Classroom

What is Google Drawings?

Google Drawings is a very versatile tool that allows you to make all sorts of graphic designs and publications.

Canva is another popular tool for graphic design and we have a guide to using Canva if you’d like to learn more.

Many people also use Google Slides for creating designs but there are differences. Check out our blog post about Google Slides.

In this Venn diagram, Tony Vincent shows us how Google Drawings and Google Slides are the same and different.

Be sure to follow Tony on Twitter or Instagram as he often shares tips for using Google tools and other tech tools.

Tony has also started a new initiative called Shapegrams which is a great way for students to learn design skills, problem solving, and creativity through Google Drawings. You don’t need to have experience as the activities include instructional videos from Tony.

Shapegrams are reproducible pictures with instructional videos, design tips, and extension activities. They’re great for bell work, stations, extra time, and enrichment. #GoogleEdu

There’s a new Shapegram every week! https://t.co/jA6ox3lubm pic.twitter.com/nXwxt67lWX

— Shapegrams (@shapegrams) August 25, 2019

Quick facts about Google Drawings:

• It’s free.
• Your creation starts with a blank canvas of any size.
• You access Google Drawings through the web or via a Chrome app that can be used offline (works best on a computer).
• Multiple users can open and edit drawings simultaneously in real time. They can also engage in chat.
• You can make a Drawing with many components. You can add images to your canvas as well as shapes, arrows, scribbles, text, and more.
• There are many sharing options for your Google Drawing. It can be private, you can share it with select people, or you can share it publicly on the web. You can choose whether people can view or edit your Drawing.
• Your Drawing is automatically saved as you work on it.
• Google Drawings can be embedded in blogs and websites. They can also be downloaded as a JPEG, PNG, PDF etc.
• You can insert a Google Drawing into a Google Doc as explained here by Jake Miller.

Here’s a graphic summary of the above. Feel free to share it with colleagues who want to learn more about Google Drawings.

How To Start A Google Drawing

You’ll need a Google Account to access Google Drawings.

If you use Gmail or other Google products, this will be the same username/password. Teachers might also have a school Google account.

If you haven’t got a Google account yet, you can sign up here:

https://accounts.google.com/signup

Google Drive is the place where your Google Drawings are stored. It’s also one of the ways you can start a new Google Drawing.

You access your Google Drive on the web through this URL:

https://drive.google.com

Click on New in the top left-hand corner. Then click on More and then Google Drawings.

Alternatively, you can type https://docs.google.com/drawings into your browser or access Drawings via the Chrome app. If you use the app you can access Drawings when you’re offline.

How To Make And Save A Google Drawing

You’ll notice when you start a new Google Drawing, using the methods described above, you will be presented with a blank canvas.

Creating a drawing is straightforward. Here are the basics of creating and saving your work.

1) Open Google Drawings

Access drawings via your Google Drive or the Chrome App. Alternatively, just type https://docs.google.com/drawings into your browser.

2) Change your image size (optional)

If you want your image to be a certain size (e.g. the size of your blog header), you can change this in File > Page Setup > Custom. You can enter the dimensions you’re after in inches, centimeters, points, or pixels.

Tip: If you’re making a blog header, you’ll find the required dimensions in Customizer as demonstrated here.

3) Consider your background color

By default, the background of your Google Drawing will be transparent. That means there will be no background when you download your image as PNG or JPEG.

If you want your image to have a different color background (or even solid white), right-click on your canvas and select background.

Then you can play around with solid backgrounds or gradients.

4) Create your design

Add the text, images, shapes, lines, charts and more that you’d like on your design by navigating the options under Insert.

5) Save your design as an image

When you’re ready, go to File > Download as > JPEG image or PNG image. Save your image to your device.

You can also save your image as a PDF if it’s something you’d like to print or distribute.

You’ll then have an image file that you can print or use in your digital creations including your blog.

You add an image to a blog post (or page) by selecting the “Add media” button from the top of the post editor. These instructions walk you through the process.

Here is a simple blog header image I made with Google Drawings.

Learn More About Google Drawings

If you’d like to be walked through the process of adding different elements to your Google Drawings canvas, set aside 8 minutes and check out this tutorial by Mike Harmon (HLModTech).

There are two other lessons in this series if you’d like to learn even more from Mike.

Ideas For Using Google Drawings In The Classroom

Google Drawings is an ideal tool for students and teachers to make images that they can print or use digitally.

Creations can be downloaded as JPEGs and PNGs. Drawings can also be embedded straight into a blog post or page (as demonstrated above).

Examples of images you could create in Google Drawings:

• Blog headers
• Other blog images (e.g. see the example of the promotional graphic at the start of this post. These are great to share on social media).
• Certificates
• Comics
• Photos with captions
• Flowcharts, mindmaps, or other graphic organizers
• How-to tutorials
• Classroom labels

Let’s take a look at some more examples of how teachers and students are using Google Drawings.

Avatars or characters

Sheri Edwards has created a tutorial that explains how to make an avatar using Google Drawings. Sheri has an additional post worth reading with some tips for using Google Drawings.

Classroom Ideas From Eric Curts

Eric has a fabulous website called Control Alt Achieve where he shares really practical tips and resources about Google products. Be sure to check out all his Google Drawings resources. 

They’re all shared under a Creative Commons license that allows you to use the resources freely with attribution.

This presentation is jam packed with tips and ideas.

All About Me By Roxi Thompson

US teacher Roxi, had her students use Google Drawings to create a graphic about themselves during the first week of school.

This could be a useful activity to introduce students to basic Google Drawings functions. It could be ideal to display on an About page and help build classroom community.

Here is an example from Roxi. Her blog post has some student examples that could be handy to show your class.

Tweetable Examples

Twitter is full of excellent examples of the projects that are happening in classrooms around the world.

Here are some noteworthy Google Drawings projects that might work in your own classroom!

@ls_teacher’s 3rd grade math students using Google Drawings to make arrays @BraggSchoolCSD #WeAreChesterNJ pic.twitter.com/XTb6j5pPXa

— Brad Currie (@TheBradCurrie) October 10, 2019

We are getting ready for Canadian School Library Day!! Our Grade 5 Library Leaders are exploring how they can use Google Drawings to create a poster all about our library space. @CdnSchoolLibrar #peelEML pic.twitter.com/2PdhzuHTtn

— LarkspurLLC (@LarkspurLibLC) October 9, 2019

Today we are making physical maps using #googledrawings #polyline feature to make physical maps. We are learning as we go, and having fun along the way. #thisisMEtsd #talawandaempowers @TSDMarshall @TalawandaSTEM pic.twitter.com/wT3AjKw3eK

— Lexie Withrow (@MissWithrow217) October 9, 2019

Third graders @PembertonElementary used Google Drawings to create charts and diagrams (English SOL 3.6c) about rounding (Math SOL 3.1b) and animal adaptations (Science SOL 3.4) https://t.co/ixPXR1oKKa pic.twitter.com/JXUhWNtuAS

— David Clough (@djdaverave) October 9, 2019

So this is why I’m not in advertising. We’ll be using Google Drawings with Yr4 to create Welsh Tourism posters this afternoon @stwinsholywell Check out my cool example.

Hoping the children will learn advantages of PNG, rotate, crop masks, order, image import, resize & gradients pic.twitter.com/Qr300wEWL3

— Rough Cuts (@roughcuts1) October 9, 2019

Trying to come up with some engaging ways to practice our phonics and spelling using Google Drawings! #centers #benchmark @FairviewPanther @teachmeLori pic.twitter.com/xz840UsIRm

— Laura Obando (@ABCClassroom) October 8, 2019

Mosaic Lighthouses made using #GoogleDrawing #GoogleDrawings #ccsd1deskpub https://t.co/HZdiyzvqEo pic.twitter.com/Mn6HmcwAs1

— DawnTechTeacher (@DawnTechTeacher) October 3, 2019

A sampling of the ecosystem food web projects Ss have created. @TSDMarshall #thisismetsd #TalawandaEmpowers pic.twitter.com/aVR5Qx0PX7

— Kari Croucher (@KariCroucher) October 10, 2019

Learning about the design process in computer class, inventing technologies to help others, designing in Google Drawings, & writing about the specs. Delran Ss prove the future is bright!@maryjohutch @Delran_Super @DelranSTEM @DeSimoneChristy @DemicheleErica pic.twitter.com/xS7hrBeLb2

— Dan the Computer Man (@DantheComputer1) October 3, 2019

Conclusion

Google Drawings is a versatile tool that has so much potential for bloggers and students of all ages.

Whether you need a graphic for a blog post, page, widget or blog header, Google Drawings is a handy solution that’s free and intuitive to use.

Many teachers and students enjoy embedding their Google Drawings into their blog posts. Sharing work with an authentic audience yields many benefits!

How are you using Google Drawings?

Do you have any tips or examples to share?

Do you have any questions about Google Drawings?

Leave a comment below. We’d love to hear from you.

Further Reading

You might also be interested in reading:

A Beginner’s Guide To Google Slides In The Classroom

A Beginner’s Guide To Google Photos

Canva In The Classroom: Getting Started, Example Designs, And Tips!

Six Tools To Create Interactive Learning Content On Your Blog

Not too long ago, when educators needed ideas, support, or simply a place to debrief, their choices were pretty limited.

Even if you managed to catch up with colleagues in the teachers’ lounge, it was easy to still feel uninspired or isolated. Maybe you were the only art teacher, librarian, or tech coach in your school, and connecting with like-minded peers in other schools or districts often felt like a daunting task.

And for many, the teachers’ lounge wasn’t a hub of professional dialogue at all—it was more likely a spot to wrestle with the photocopier while finishing a cold cup of coffee.

Today, Facebook groups have stepped in to change this. These online communities allow educators to feel more connected, supported, and inspired than ever, with access to professional conversations and resources around the clock.

In this post, we’ll explore what Facebook groups are, how educators and schools are using them, highlight five popular examples, and introduce our latest pop-up Facebook group.

What Is A Facebook Group?

Facebook groups are simply online spaces to communicate with others about shared interests.

There are all sorts of Facebook groups. Some might involve only people you know like your extended family, sports team, colleagues, or school community.

Other Facebook groups are for strangers who are interested in uniting on a common topic. Basically think of any topic, interest, or need and there is probably a Facebook group up and running — parenting, fitness, business, politics, local news, television shows, buy and sell, sports, celebrity fan clubs and so much more.

Of course, Facebook groups are very popular with educators as well.

Facebook Group Quick Facts

Here is an overview of how Facebook Groups work:

• You can only join or create a Facebook group if you have a Facebook account (but don’t worry, if you don’t want to post on your Facebook profile and add friends, you don’t have to).
• Any Facebook user can create a group.
• Some Facebook groups are public but many are private (only members can see who’s in the group and what they post).
• You often need to request permission to join a Facebook group.
• Some Facebook groups are visible so any user can search for them, others are hidden and you need an invitation to join.
• You can join up to 6000 Facebook groups! We have a feeling that would just be a little hard to keep track of.
• Facebook groups have administrators and moderators that are nominated by the group creator. These individuals might post discussion threads, approve membership requests, and ensure everyone is adhering to the group rules.
• Groups can be ongoing or more of a “pop-up” short term group for a certain event or course.

Facebook Pages Vs Groups

Confused about Facebook pages Vs groups?

Pages are like public profiles for brands, businesses, and publishers. Anyone can see the page and like or follow it if they wish. Facebook users can also comment on posts they see on pages and/or share page posts with their friends.

Groups are more engaged communities and they’re often private. They’re a popular way to generate conversations, connections, and support.

This is a simplified version of how you might distinguish between Facebook pages and groups.

Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerberg, has been prioritizing Facebook groups over recent years and they’re growing in popularity.

Be sure to like our Edublogs Facebook page if you’re not already!

How Do Facebook Groups Work?

Like any community, it can take work to keep a Facebook group active and engaged.

The administrators and moderators might work behind the scenes to keep the group alive. They might pose interesting open-ended questions for the group to respond to, or encourage the people who are posting with responses.

If you’re considering joining a Facebook group, you’ll be able to see how many posts there have been recently. This will give you an idea of whether the group is active and whether it’s worth your while joining.

There are pros and cons to smaller more tightly connected groups, and larger busier groups. Joining a smaller group might mean you get to know members and form closer connections. Larger groups might offer more anonymity but there will probably always be someone around to interact with.

When you go to the Facebook group, you’ll see this information under “Activity”. It will be visible even if you’re not a group member.

So what might you see in a Facebook group? Well, groups house all sorts of content — discussion threads, images, videos, and files. Some groups allow sales posts.

Once you’re a member of a Facebook group you can read other people’s posts and replies. Some people tend to lurk and simply consume the content in groups, while others are more involved and regularly post questions, updates, and replies.

Many people find the more they put in to Facebook groups, the more they get out!

How Can Schools Use Facebook Groups?

There are many ways that school communities around the world are embracing Facebook groups.

Some approaches are led by the school (perhaps linked to the official school Facebook page), and others are more grassroots groups set up by parents or students.

Some schools and communities set up separate Facebook groups for:

• General school news
• Specific grade levels or classes (e.g. “Year 2” or “Class 2B”)
• Sporting teams
• Extra-curricular groups, e.g. musical production, cheerleading etc.
• Event organisation, e.g. school fair, or graduation ceremony
• Uniform or textbook buy and sell
• Homework help
• Alumni

Managing school Facebook groups is an important topic of discussion amongst communities. Many schools are now realizing they can’t prevent the creation of groups so need to put guidelines in place to ensure groups are used positively.

Some schools include Facebook groups in their social media policy to ensure all group administrators understand the importance of online safety and follow the school guidelines. Often schools might make it clear via their official channels of communication (e.g. newsletter), that Facebook groups are not used for official school communication.

It’s a balancing act for schools. If they can’t control the group content, they might be wary. On the other hand, any avenue that is connecting the community can’t be ignored.

If this is an issue that your school has juggled, we’d love to hear from you in a comment.

5 Popular Facebook Groups For Educators

Like the idea of joining some Facebook groups but unsure where to start? Here are a few groups that educators in our community enjoy. We’d love you to leave a comment with your own suggestions.

Tip: As you join and interact with groups, you may find Facebook suggests other groups you might enjoy on the right side of your screen. For example,

1) Teach With Tech

Type of Group: Private (visible)

URL: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TeachWithTechGroup

Creator: Danielle Weinberg Knight

Members: 61,000+

This is a group to post questions related to edtech, devices, sites, apps, extensions, and technology in the classroom. Members are encouraged to post successful lessons, activities, takeaways, and so on.

2) Technology Teacher Tribe With Brittany Washburn

Type of Group: Private (visible)

URL: https://www.facebook.com/groups/techteachertribe/

Creator: Brittany Washburn

Members: 33,000+

This is closed group for teachers who teach technology or love using it in their classroom. It allows for teachers to connect with others around the world, ask questions and share their own experiences.

3) STEM Teachers Group

Type of Group: Private (visible)

URL: https://www.facebook.com/groups/STEMteachertribe

Creator: Meredith Anderson

Members: 45,000+

STEM Teachers Group is for educators, homeschooling parents, and makerspace staff. It’s a place to share STEM ideas and connect.

4) Fitness for Teachers

Type of Group: Private (visible)

URL: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1687288924866712/

Creator: Jennifer Gibbons

Members: 72,000+

Groups for educators don’t have to be solely about curriculum and learning. This group is a place for teachers looking to incorporate fitness into their busy lifestyle.

5) Teacher Memes

Type of Group: Private (visible)

URL: https://www.facebook.com/groups/716962268473473/

Creators: Amy Margaret and Krista Cromer

Members: 368,000+

Educators sure need a sense of humor to deal with their job! Online or offline, teachers have always relied on each other for a laugh and boost of positivity. This group is a place to share funny memes that other teachers will relate to.

There is a language warning so don’t join this group if you’re easily offended.

Over To You

Any questions about Facebook groups? Leave a comment and we’ll get back to you.

Do you use Facebook groups? Can you recommend any other groups for educators? We’d love to hear from you.

If you’re like me, you’re always on the lookout for the quickest way to track down information or solve everyday problems.

Google Lens is my go-to tool for recognizing objects, plants, and animals — but it can do so much more. From instantly translating text while you’re traveling to copying text from textbooks, PDFs, or printed pages, it offers quick solutions at your fingertips.

It’s simple to use, completely free, and surprisingly, many people still don’t realize how powerful this tool can be. That’s where we come in!

In this beginner’s guide to Google Lens, we’ll show you how it works, how to get started, and share plenty of tips and tricks to make the most of it.

Google Lens also connects with Google Photos. If you’d like to dive deeper into Google Photos, don’t miss our ultimate guide. 

The Basics – What is Google Lens?

Google Lens is image recognition software released in 2017 by Google. It was originally designed to provide relevant information about an object using visual analysis.

It’s a fast free solution for reading and understanding information within images. The latest version of Google Lens has five modes:

• Auto: Lens automatically provides relevant search results based on the image it sees.
• Translate:  Point at text and Lens provides a translation on top of the original words.
• Text: Point Lens at the text you want to copy.
• Shopping:  Point Lens at an item that you would like to find in a store or scan the barcode.
• Dining:  Scan a menu and Lens can highlight which dishes are popular, provide reviews, or tell you more about a particular dish if you tap on the text.  You can also scan your receipt to get Lens to calculate the tip and split the bill.

How To Get Started With Google Lens

On Android phones, you can install the Google Lens app from the Play Store, use it inside Google Photos or use the Google Lens icon in your Google Assistant.

On iOS phones, you can access using the Google Lens icon inside Google Photos and the Google app.

Identifying objects, plants, and animals

Google Lens is the fastest way of identifying plants, flowers, animals (or their breed), identifying an object and how it might be used!  It can also be used for exploring popular landmarks and places to learn about them and their historical facts when traveling.

Lens options vary depending on your device so I’ve decided to demonstrate how to identify objects using Google Lens inside the Google Photo app since you can use this option on both an Android and iOS.

Here’s a quick video to show how it’s done:

You identify an object, plant, or animal by analyzing a photo you’ve taken inside Google Photos as follows:

1. Open Google Photos.

2. Tap on photo of the object and then tap on Google Lens icon.

3. This launches Google Lens which is their image recognition software designed to bring up relevant information using visual analysis.

4. Results are displayed below the photo.

5. Tap on an image in the related results to find out more.

This search was to find out what the item my husband received in a gift basket was used for.  It had us all stumped!

The answer was:

It’s a ‘Click on leaf-shaped colander’ that you use as follows:

Copy-Paste Text From Textbooks and Documents

Google Lens’ ability to copy-paste text means you now have a fast way to copy study notes from a textbook, or from a document, into your own document.  Its OCR (Optical Character Recognition) allows you to read any character from an image and turn it into editable text.

The easiest way to copy-paste text is by using the Google Lens app if you have an Android phone. The alternative option is to use the Google Lens icon inside Google Photos if you are using an iOS phone.

Here’s a quick video to show how it is done:

Here’s how to copy-paste text using the Google Lens app:

1. Open the Google Lens app (Android only).

2. Point your phone’s camera over all the text you want to scan (so it is all highlighted).

3. Tap on the Text icon.

4. Tap on Select All (or you can tap on sections of text you want to select).

5. Tap on Copy text.

6. Open up the app or document you wish to copy the text into (I use Google Docs on my phone).

7. Long press the cursor in your document to summon the selection menu.

8. Tap Paste.

9. Save the document and open up on the desktop to make edits to the text (if needed). My example needed editing as I was scanning an old document that has faded text.

Tap on the Photo icon on the top right of the Google Lens app if you want to copy-paste text from a photo you’ve taken. 

Here’s how to copy-paste text using the Google Lens icon inside the Google Photos app:

1. Open Google Photos.
2. Open the photo you want to copy-paste text from.
3. Tap in the Google Lens icon.

4. Tap on the Search Icon to launch the Google Lens mode options.

5. Tap on the Text icon.

6. Tap on Select All (or you can tap on sections of text you want to select).

7. Tap on Copy Text.

8. Open up the app or document you wish to copy the text into (I use Google Docs on my phone).
9. Long press the cursor in your document to summon the selection menu.

10. Tap Paste.
11. Save document and open up on desktop to make edits to the text (if needed). My example needed editing as I was scanning an old document that has faded text.

Translate Text in Textbooks and on Signs

Google Lens is able to quickly translate foreign words in any image into your own language. Handy for when you are traveling or need to translate text from a textbook.

Here’s a quick video to show how it is done:

Here’s how to translate text using the Google Lens app:

1. Open the Google Lens app (Android only).
2. Point your phone’s camera over all the text you want to translate.

3. Tap on the Translate icon and the translated words will appear over the original words.  Tap on Copy All if you want to copy-paste the translated text into a document.

Here’s how to translate text using the Google Lens icon inside Google Photos app:

1. Open Google Photos.
2. Open the photo you want to translate text from.
3. Tap in the Google Lens icon.

4. Tap on Search icon to access Google Lens modes.

5. Tap on Translate icon.

6. The translated words will appear over the original words.

Scan QR Codes

Google Lens is able to read QR codes so there is no need to install a QR Code Reader.  Thanks to Frank Cademartori for sharing this tip!

In Google Photos you tap on the QR code you want to read once you’ve tapped on the Google Lens icon and the URL from the QR code is displayed below the image.

Inside the Google lens app on an android phone you tap on the QR code to reveal the link and then tap on the link to visit the website.

Any Tips or Questions?

I hope this information helps you get the most out of Google Lens.  I haven’t included instructions for how to use Shopping or Dining mode – refer to the following video to see how these two modes work.

Remember, if you’d like to learn more about Google Photos, check out our complete guide.

Please leave a comment below to provide tips on using Google Lens or let me know if you have any questions.

School libraries come in all shapes and sizes. No matter what your school library looks like, a high quality website or blog is crucial.

With a little creativity and a few essential ingredients, you can build an exciting and engaging library website that inspires students to thrive in their education. After all, studies have consistently shown that school libraries play a significant role in academic success.

In this article, we’ll explain why your website is a vital part of your school library experience. Then we’ll discuss 5 essential features you should include when creating or updating your school library site. We’ve also got 8 examples of great school library websites and blogs to share with you.

Whether you’re part of an elementary school, high school, or university, these library tips and examples will help.

Why Your School Library Website Is Important

All educators know the library plays a vital role in students’ schooling. It serves as a central hub for learning and gathering, while providing resources to help students achieve academic success.

Your school library’s website is an extension of the physical library and serves many of the same purposes. For many students, your website might be their first point of contact with the library, so it’s critical that it provides visitors with the same positive experience they’d have at your physical library.

Your website also gives you an opportunity to extend the advantages your library offers to students or staff who can’t visit in person. This is especially true in the current global climate, when physical locations may have limited hours or might not be open at all.

Your library website isn’t just about browsing the catalog or checking if certain books are available. It also provides a virtual space to interact with your community and spread the word about upcoming opportunities. This is especially helpful for library-specific events such as book fairs, author visits, and more.

5 Essential Features to Add to Your School Library’s Website

Now that you know why your library’s website is so important, you may be wondering how to make it as useful as possible for your students. These five features should give you a solid starting point. 

1. Clear Site Navigation

It might seem basic, but the most important feature you can include on your library site is clear, easy-to-follow navigation. In other words, make it easy for your users to find what they’re looking for. 

This feature is first on our list for a reason. According to surveys, clean and clear navigation is the most useful feature a website can have.

To ensure clear navigation, follow these guidelines:

• Use descriptive labels. Visitors shouldn’t have to guess what they’re clicking on.
• Avoid too many dropdown menus in your main navigation. They can make it more difficult for visitors to find the right links.
• Avoid the temptation to include a link on the homepage to every page on your site. Stick to a maximum of seven items or less.
• Include an easy-to-use, powerful search function. Ensure you have a search box in prominent locations and also link to your library catalog so students can locate books, articles, databases, and other materials.

2. Regularly Updated Content

A school library website or blog requires regular maintenance. This might included:

• Removing dead links or outdated information.
• Regularly posting new blog posts or relevant content.
• Approving and responding to comments if these are enabled on a blog.

An easily-accessible calendar is also a must for most library websites. These are especially useful if your library hosts events such as book fairs, group study times, or training classes. You can also include events from around campus; they don’t necessarily have to be library-related. When you solidify the library (and your website) as a central part of your institution, you can help students maintain interest in reading and education-related opportunities year-round.

Like your navigation menu, your calendar should feature a simple design and focus on providing clear details that are easy to read. If people can’t find key information, they may miss out on the opportunities you’re trying to provide. 

A popular choice is a Google Calendar that you might like to add to the sidebar of your site.

The Calendar+ plugin is another option that makes it easy to add events, manage your calendar, and display it in an easy-to-read format. You can select which event categories to display on each page where your calendar appears, making it easy for you to highlight library-specific events if you want to.

3. Consistent Design

If you work in a school library, you probably put a lot of effort into ensuring it’s a welcoming and attractive place to visit. The look and feel of your school library website is equally important.

Choose some design features that will be consistent throughout your school library website or blog. You want students and staff to become familiar with the website design and know that they’re on the library site. Here are some ideas to consider:

• Colors: Perhaps you have some school colors that you’ll weave into your website design. Keep these consistent so every page looks like it belongs to the site.
• Fonts: Again, consistency is key. Choose one or two easy to read fonts and stick with them.
• Mascot: If you have a school or library mascot, this image might feature throughout your content.
• Images: Pictures can make your website come alive, but you obviously don’t want to overdo it. Also, choose an image design and stick with it. Perhaps your images will be cartoons, professional photographs, or more casual photographs that are taken by staff and students. Of course, make sure you’re acting as a role model when it comes to copyright and Creative Commons.

You can also add fun, personalized elements to your site to make it feel more inviting and reflective of your school’s personality. Bitmojis are a fun feature some educators like to include for a personal and consistent design.

4. Visible Contact Details

Your school library website is a link between your physical and virtual space. It’s important that the site clearly shows users how they can make contact with the physical library, staff, or other virtual platforms.

Here are some tips:

• If your library has an online presence elsewhere on the internet, make these visible. If your library has an online presence elsewhere on the internet, make these links visible on your site — such as in the sidebar or footer. This might include your library’s YouTube channel, Pinterest, Instagram, or Twitter account.
• Consider sharing the school library phone number and relevant email addresses on the homepage and the footer of every page.
• Share opening hours and visitor information in an easy to find location. This is especially important during the pandemic when this information might change.
• A map that shares the physical location of the library might be useful especially if you hold events that are open to the wider community, or want to welcome new students.

5. Accessible Design

Your library site must be usable by all people, including those with disabilities or individuals who are less familiar with navigating the web and using technology. A key part of this is following accessible design best practices.

Accessible design requires attention to your site’s color choices. Use a clean, high-contrast theme with a clear distinction between elements. Bright colors are generally the best choice. It’s also important to include readable fonts of an appropriate size, so that users with visual impairments can see them easily.

It’s also crucial to include alt text for your images. Alt text (short for alternative text) is an HTML attribute you can add to images to describe what they look like. 

In WordPress, you can add alt text when uploading images in your posts or via your Media Library: 

If an image can’t be displayed for some reason, the alt text will be shown instead. It’s also useful for site visitors who rely on screen readers, which will read aloud your descriptions of visual elements.

Finally, make sure hyperlinks on your site use descriptive anchor text. Anchor text is the visible text of the hyperlink. It should clearly describe what content the user will find when clicking on the link. In other words, avoid using phrases such as “Click Here”. 

Learn more about accessible design in our complete guide on the CampusPress blog.

7 Examples Of Great School Library Blogs And Websites

We’ve covered 5 basic elements of high quality school library sites, now onto some examples. You’ll see here these examples range from straightforward blogs set up by individual teachers using Edublogs, to professionally designed school library websites. They range from elementary school to college level websites.

1) Jackson Elementary Library Blog

URL: https://jacksonelementarylibrary.edublogs.org
Age Group: Elementary

Amy Kincaid is a teacher-librarian from Texas who runs the very comprehensive Jackson Elementary Library blog.

Amy is a very innovative and future orientated librarian who also enjoys sharing her knowledge with others.

She regularly posts about the wonderful learning activities her K-5 students are working on. Technology is integrated into her lessons in a very creative way.

2) The University of Melbourne

URL: https://library.unimelb.edu.au
Age Group: College/University

Like so many libraries around the world, The University of Melbourne was quick to pivot when physical buildings were closed during COVID, and their library website reflects this.

The University library services are delivered virtually and the website invites staff and students to chat with a librarian, attend online workshops, reach out to librarians via phone or email, or access digital resources.

The clear design of this website, hosted by CampusPress, puts the robust search function in prime position.

3) The MHMS Daring School Library Blog

URL: https://daringlibrary.edublogs.org
Age Group: Middle school

Gwyneth Jones, aka The Daring Librarian, has been blogging since 2006. She is well known in the global education community.

Gwyneth describes her mission as, “to prepare future-ready lifelong readers, learners, makers, and creative thinkers.”

She uses her middle school blog to provide library news for teachers, students, and parents both locally and globally. Gwyneth also shares her lessons and resources on her professional blog which complements the library blog.

4) Reedy High School Library

URL: https://borchardtlibrary.edublogs.org
Age Group: High school

You don’t necessarily need to enlist professionals to help you set up a user friendly school library website. Reedy High School Library is an excellent site created with Edublogs.

It has a clean and clear design that makes navigation easy. The top navigation menu invites users to choose one of five options: search, books to go, eBooks and audio books, digital resources, and help/FAQs.

A welcome video on the sidebar of the homepage gives new users a glimpse into the library atmosphere with a motto of, “One Pride. Many Dreams. You are seen. You are valued at Reedy Library.”

5) Red River College Library

URL: https://library.rrc.ca/home
Age Group: College/University

This extensive website is a one-stop shop for students and staff looking to engage with their college library.

A rotating banner advertises library services, while a central search box invites users to browse for relevant resources.

This is a library that’s also active on social media and links to all social media accounts are displayed prominently.

The announcements on the homepage keep the community up to date with changes to opening hours due to the pandemic.

6) Forest Hill College Library

URL: https://fhclibrary.edublogs.org
Age Group: High school

The Forest Hill College library site is another example of a basic site set up using Edublogs.

It provides a launching point to the library catalog with links on pages and the sidebar. An outstanding feature of this site is the regularly updated blog posts. These posts share a library newsletter, interviews, tips for parents, library services, and more.

7) Charleston Southern University

URL: https://library.csuniv.edu
Age Group: College/University

The uncluttered design of this university website makes it easy for staff and students to find what they’re looking for. The search box features prominently, and icons are used to direct users to a range of services.

Clear contact details on a library website are important; a footer on every page of this site reminds users of the physical address, email address, and phone number of their university library.

Conclusion

Whether you’re part of an elementary school, high school, college, or university, your library provides a vital service, and its online presence is an integral part of that.

A school library serves as a first point of contact with students, and can provide resources to those who may need additional help but can’t visit in person. Your library site can also serve as a central hub for campus events and other opportunities.

During the pandemic, a high-quality school library website has only become more important to act as a bridge between physical and virtual learning.

The trick making your library’s website or blog as engaging and useful as possible is to include these 5 essentials:

1. Clear site navigation
2. Regularly updated content
3. Consistent design
4. Visible contact details
5. Accessible design

Do you have any questions about school library websites? Let us know in the comments section below, or get in touch. We’d love to hear from you and our team can help you set up or improve your own school library website.

So, you’ve decided to start blogging with your students—congratulations! You’re about to begin an exciting and rewarding learning journey.

Before bringing blogging into your classroom, your first step should be securing permission from both your school and students’ families.

Getting the necessary approval isn’t just a legal requirement—it also helps keep all stakeholders informed and supportive of this new endeavor.

If you’re using the Edublogs platform, you can familiarize yourself with our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. It can be a good idea to make sure your district/school/families are aware of these policies too.

This post goes through some general advice to help you navigate the process of obtaining permission to blog with your students.

We’ll go through three steps:

1. Consulting with your school leaders or principal
2. Setting up your blogging guidelines
3. Obtaining informed permission from parents or carers

Let’s begin…

Step One: Consult With Your School Leaders Or Principal

Edublogs’ users come from many different school districts and countries all around the world. Legal advice and requirements vary greatly. It’s important to consult your own individual legislation prior to publishing online. Your school principal or district administrators will be able to let you know if there are any specific requirements you need to keep in mind.

Hopefully your school principal is already encouraging you and other staff to publish online. If not, it’s a good idea to seek permission and engage in a discussion about how you see blogging being used in your classroom.

If your principal is unfamiliar with blogging and you want to discuss the potential advantages of a blogging program, you might want to jot down the key benefits of blogging that excite you the most. This post explains 18 benefits and you can choose which ones you think apply to you and your students.

Many educators want to start a blogging program to strengthen home-school partnerships, provide a motivating authentic audience for their students’ work, or cover digital citizenship in an ongoing and supported way.

Our Complete Guide to Student Digital Portfolios goes over more benefits for students:

When consulting with your principal about your blogging program, you might like to discuss how you will use blogging to enchance your classroom program.

Here are three things to consider:

1) Will you have a class blog and/or student blogs?

Some educators like to start with a class blog before moving on to student blogs. This approach can allow you to develop blogging skills and confidence with your students, while maintaining control over what’s being published online.

When you are ready to implement student blogs or portfolios, our Guide to Student Digital Portfolios will definitely help.

2) What will blogging replace or improve?

The richest advantages of blogging often emerge when blogging is neither an add-on nor a substitution for pen and paper work. 

SAMR (substitution – augmentation – modification – redefinition/reflection) is a popular model to base this reflection on, but there are other models as Michael Gorman has described.

3) What are the key purposes of your blogging program?

Some of the most popular uses for classroom blogs include:

• Delivering news and updates to students and families
• Posting student assignments and coursework
• Facilitating online discussions
• Providing a platform where students can publish their work for an authentic audience
• Connecting with other classes locally or globally

The purpose of your blogging program will naturally evolve over time but deciding why you want to blog can help you successfully launch your program.

Step Two: Set Up Your Blogging Guidelines

To ensure everyone is safe and happy when publishing online, some guidelines for your blogging program are essential. You’ll also want to consider the level of privacy that will work for you and your school community.

What guidelines and privacy settings you will have in place?

There is a lot to think about here such as:

• Will your blog be public or private? We have a post to help you weigh up that decision.
• Will you publish students’ photos and names? We recommend you don’t match photos with names.
• Will you write posts and have students comment, or will students create posts too?
• Will you moderate all posts and comments on the blog? My Class by Edublogs is a tool that makes this easy.
• How will you teach students to think before posting and prevent them from revealing personal information?

Example Blog Guidelines

Here are some blogging guidelines I used with my own students. You’re welcome to use and adapt them as you see fit. I published these as a page on my class blog so they were readily accessible by all visitors (find out how to publish a new page in this help guide).

Click here to make your own copy of the Google Doc and edit accordingly.

When you click to make a copy, you’ll be presented with a pop-up like the one shown below. Just select “Make a copy”.

Please edit the guidelines to suit your own class and school.

Step Three: Obtain Permission From Parents

You may be following a long line of bloggers at your school, or you may be the pioneer. Some schools have a general “internet use” permission form, but you might not think this is enough to obtain fully informed consent.

It’s a smart idea to assume that not every parent or guardian will be well-versed in blogging or understand how and why it might be used in the classroom. Therefore, it doesn’t hurt to add an information sheet or brief summary to explain the basics.

Ultimately, parents often just want to know their child will be safe online.

Example Blogging Permission Form

We have a generic permission form that you’re welcome to use and adapt.

Click here to make your own copy of the Google Doc and edit accordingly.

When you click to make a copy, you’ll be presented with a pop-up like the one shown below. This will allow you to save a version in your own Google Drive that you can edit.

If you’re only having a class blog, rather than student blogs, you can remove references to student blogs. Go ahead and make this form your own.

What Can You Add?

While it’s important to ensure you collect fully informed consent before you begin blogging, George Couros points out another important reminder: Ask the students. Do they want all their work and photos online, even if you have parent/school permission?

I appreciate the educators that make this a common practice, no matter what forms are signed. If we do not ask the student for their permission, do all of the other forms and permissions matter as much?

George Couros

How do you obtain permission to blog? Do you have any blogging guidelines, notes or resources you could share?

Leave a comment below with any questions or advice. We’d love to hear from you.

About Us

At CampusPress, we’re experts in bringing innovative web solutions to schools, school districts, colleges, and universities through WordPress and our wide range of out-of-the-box and custom plugins and products.

In fact, our services in accessibility, security, hosting, support, along with an extensive suite of other tools, power millions of education websites, blog networks and portfolios. Learn more about our school website services or request info today!

It has never been easier to publish online or consume digital content. This comes with many advantages and can make teaching and learning so much more targeted and impactful. Living in a digital world also brings up many questions — one issue that is very important to understand is copyright.

Whether you’re an educator, student, or blogger, copyright is a topic that is often overlooked as it can be confusing or just not considered important.

Unfortunately, there are also a lot of myths about copyright circulating amongst the education community. Maybe you’ve heard that you can use any images or texts you find online if you’re using them for education? Or perhaps you’ve heard that you can use any songs in your videos as long as you use less than 30 seconds? Yep, both not true.

Copyright is important for all teachers, students, and bloggers to know about. And it doesn’t have to be as complicated as you think. We’re here to break down the basics of copyright and other related topics like fair use, public domain, and Creative Commons.

There’s a lot to learn in this post so remember to bookmark it and use the menu below to navigate.

Copyright Rules To Remember

What Is Copyright?

What Is Fair Use

What Is Public Domain?

What Is Creative Commons

Finding Creative Commons Images

Copyright And Music

Copyright And Video

Copyright Text Or Curriculum Materials

Copyright Infringement

Copyright Considerations When Publishing Online

Using Quotes In Blog Posts

Adding Your Own Creative License

Conclusion And Summary Slideshow

Let’s get started with the basics.

Copyright Rules To Remember

Let’s begin with the 5 main rules you need to remember about copyright.

1) Just because you found it online, doesn’t mean it’s free to use (even if you’re a teacher or student).

2) There are a lot of resources you can use freely including work that has a Creative Commons license or is in the public domain.

3) You have a right as a creator to have your work protected from copying and you can also give your own content a Creative Commons license.

4) If in doubt about using content, ask the creator for permission, find a free alternative, make your own material, or purchase an alternative that has the usage rights you’re after.

5) Instead of looking for loopholes, consider whether you’re being the most responsible and ethical digital citizen you can be.

Want a poster for your classroom or staffroom? Download a letter-sized poster of the 5 rules to remember here.

What Is Copyright?

Copyright is a form of legal protection offered to creators by default. That means, in many countries (like the USA and Australia), you don’t have to register your work to have it protected by copyright.

Some creators do register their work with the U.S. Copyright Office (or the equivalent in their own country). Usually, this is to provide strong evidence to a court that the creator is the copyright holder if there is ever an infringement case. You don’t need to have registered your work with the Copyright Office in order to pursue a copyright infringement case.

It’s a myth that you have to display a copyright symbol © to protect your work.

Can Others Use Your Copyrighted Work?

If you’re a copyright owner, someone else can’t copy your work without your permission. They also can’t perform the work, distribute copies of the work, display the work publicly, or create derivatives.

If someone does use work that’s protected by copyright without permission, that’s called copyright infringement. We’ll cover this later.

Who Owns The Copyright?

Usually, the creator of a work is the copyright owner but the copyright can also be sold, traded, or inherited.

What Does Copyright Cover?

Copyright covers both published and unpublished works that are tangible in format. So, all tangible original work is protected by copyright whether it’s a blog post, music, artwork, photo, play, poem, novel, dance choreography, movie, software, architecture, or more.

Copyright does not protect works that are not tangible, like facts or ideas. Copyright only protects the tangible expression of your ideas. So you might have a great idea for a blog post about teaching 5th grade math but unless you actually write the post, you can’t protect the idea that’s floating around in your head. And you can’t stop others from writing about the same idea.

You can read more about the basics of copyright on the U.S. Copyright Office website (or on your own country’s official site). There are some variations between countries.

What Is Fair Use?

So now you understand that most of the work you’re accessing online or in books is going to be protected by copyright (images, text, videos, music, and more). This means you can’t necessarily use these materials freely on your class blog, website, or with your students in your classroom.

“But fair use applies here doesn’t it”, I hear you ask? Because you’re using images, text, videos, or music for educational purposes, that’s okay, right? Teachers and students don’t have to worry?

Not necessarily.

The more you dig in to the topic of fair use, the more you come to realize it is a gray area.

As the U.S. Copyright Office explains, The Classroom Use Exemption 17 U.S.C. §110(1) allows you to use copyrighted material when you meet certain criteria.

If you’re teaching online or wanting to hand out copies of work, then you may not be covered by this exemption. Furthermore, these fair use laws are specific to the U.S. so if you’re in another country, you may not be covered. Some countries don’t have a fair use law or they may be more specific or broad than the U.S.

For example, in Australia, there is “Fair Dealing” which is an exception to copyright infringement that’s a little more specific than in the U.S. You may be able to use portions of copyright material without permission for the purpose of:

• research or study
• criticism or review
• parody or satire
• reporting news, or
• enabling a person with a disability to access the material

Overall, fair use isn’t as simple as it seems, right? Instead of trying to find loopholes with fair use, a better approach is to look for materials that you can use freely.

The best place to start is with public domain or Creative Commons materials. So let’s dig into that.

What Is The Public Domain?

In general, in the U.S., copyright lasts for the life of the author plus seventy years after the author’s death.

What happens to work after the copyright expires? Well, it becomes part of the public domain. Works can also enter the public domain if they are factual (e.g. charts or calendars), they are published before a certain date, or a creator has assigned their work to the public domain.

When something is in the public domain it means the work is owned by the public and you don’t have to get permission to use it. This is great for educators looking for materials they can freely use with their students.

Example Public Domain Resources

There are many places online where you can find books, images, audio, and videos that are in the public domain.

Some popular choices for public domain materials include:

• Project Gutenberg: 60,000+ eBooks that can be downloaded (most are older works with expired copyright). 
• Faded Page: 5,000+ eBooks that are in the public domain in Canada.
• Metropolitan Museum of Art: includes more than 400,000 images from The Met collection.
• Smithsonian Institution Public Domain Images: a collection of 3,000+ images housed on Flickr.
• Librivox: public domain audiobooks that are read by volunteers from around the world.
• Prelinger Archives: thousands of public domain films (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur).

What Is Creative Commons?

Sometimes creators (copyright holders) are happy for others to use their work, as long as they meet certain conditions.

A creator can place a Creative Commons license on their work which describes the terms of using, modifying, and sharing the works. A simple license removes the hassle of others having to ask the creator for permission.

Creative Commons is an international organization that made this system possible. The mission of the Creative Commons organization is clear,

By helping people and organizations share knowledge and creativity, we aim to build a more equitable, accessible, and innovative world.

If a creator decides to attach a Creative Commons license to their work, there are six Creative Commons licenses to choose from.

See this post about copyright and Creative Commons that includes a poster to simplify the licenses.

If you’d like to learn more about Creative Commons licenses, the video below by McLaughlin Library is a good place to start. You can learn more about Creative Commons Licenses on the official website of the organization as well.

Finding Creative Commons Images

If you need images for your blog, website, videos, or other projects, Creative Commons images are a good choice. As long as you’re using the image according to the license with attribution, you won’t be infringing copyright.

If you’re looking for images that have a Creative Commons license, there are an increasing number of options out there. We’ll show you some of the more popular options, but first, it’s important to understand attribution.

All Creative Commons resources require attribution unless they’re licensed with the least restrictive Creative Commons Zero license. That means no attribution is required and you can use the resource however you like.

Let’s take a look at how to attribute Creative Commons images. The same instructions apply to other works (text, videos, etc.).

How To Attribute Creative Commons Images

When you use a resource with a Creative Commons license, you have to attribute it in a particular way. Attributing means sharing the details of the work and giving credit.

The acronym TASL can help us remember what to include.

• Title of the image or material (don’t worry if there is no title)
• Author  or creator of the image/material
• Source of the image/material. Where is it from? Include a link if possible so others can find it
• License — include which of the six Creative Commons licenses applies to the work

Here’s a photo I found on Wikimedia Commons of a bridge in Western Australia. You can see I included the attribution below the image.

If you use images from Wikimedia Commons, getting the attribution information is easy. As you go to download the image, you’re prompted to copy the attribution information.

You can copy the attribution information either in plain text format (as in caption above), or as HTML as shown below.

If you insert HTML into your blog post, it’ll become hyperlinked. Learn more about inserting custom HTML in Edublogs/CampusPress/WordPress block editor here.

If you’d like to learn more about attribution and explore some examples of ideal, acceptable, and unacceptable attributions, check out this page on the Creative Commons wiki. There’s also a handy PDF about attribution on the Australian Creative Commons website.

Now you know the basics of attribution. Let’s take a look at where you can find images and music that have a Creative Commons license. We’ll begin with images that don’t require attribution.

Creative Commons Zero Images

(No Attribution Required)

There are a number of websites where you can find images that are free to use without attribution (Creative Commons Zero).

Check out this post about the best websites to find Creative Commons images that either don’t require attribution or the attribution is included within the image like the example below from Photos For Class:

The sites reviewed in this post and the summary diagram below are:

• Pixabay
• Unsplash
• Pexels
• Photos for Class
• Openclipart
• Pics4Learning

Here’s a summary poster that you’re free to use in your own teaching.

The one issue that a lot of educators overlook is that a lot of these free image sites are age-restricted. So if you teach younger students, many sites are not going to be suitable.

Another thing to consider is that even though the images from these sites don’t need to be attributed (or they include the attribution information within the image) it’s still a good idea to teach students about copyright, Creative Commons, and attribution. As producers and consumers on the web, these are really vital understandings for students and all internet users. Just remember, even if attribution isn’t required, it’s always appreciated by the creator.

Creative Commons Images That Require Attribution

Apart from the sites listed above with images that don’t require attribution, there are other places to find images with one of the six Creative Commons licenses that do require attribution.

Creative Commons Search Engine

The first place you might want to look is the search engine on the official Creative Commons website. This is an excellent tool that was updated in 2019. It allows you to search through millions of CC images from more than 20 different sites.

When using the search engine, you can easily filter the search results — for example, you can filter by file type, use, or license.

Wikimedia Commons

We already mentioned Wikimedia Commons above in the section about attribution. Wikimedia Commons has a large collection of images, audio, and videos that are free to use. Most require attribution.

Wikimedia Commons collections are included in the Creative Commons search engine so that tool really is a one-stop shop.

Search For Creative Commons Images On Google

Sadly, it is common practice for many teachers, students, and bloggers to take images straight from Google. Most images on Google are protected by copyright and using these images is illegal and unethical.

You may know that you can do an advanced search on Google to find Creative Commons images, although it does require a few steps. First, you need to filter your search results to find images that can be reused.

This video from Jurupa School District explains how to do that.

Then the next step, that is not shown in the video, is you have to click through to the site the image is from, look for the Creative Commons license, and attribute your image correctly.

As we saw above, using the Creative Commons search engine or Wikimedia Commons makes it really simple to attribute your chosen image. All you really have to do is copy/paste. Using Google search doesn’t make it easy to attribute Creative Commons images. So this is not the way we’d recommend finding Creative Commons images online.

Copyright And Music

No doubt there have been many times when you want to use music on your blog, in your content, or in class. When you’re creating a video it can be extremely tempting to use popular music that reflects the mood and emotion of the footage. Or maybe you want students to play popular music at a performance or public event.

As you probably know, most music is protected by copyright. It doesn’t matter if you paid for a song or not, it’s still protected by copyright. It doesn’t matter if you’re only using 30 seconds or less of a song, it’s still protected by copyright.

Let’s take a look at some specific examples of music and copyright.

Using Music In Projects Like Videos

Normally, you can’t just use any music you like in your projects or videos.

However, in many countries, there are exceptions. For example, in the U.S. and Australia, you are allowed to copy music to add to a video if:

a) it’s for educational purposes and
b) you’re not sharing your video publicly (or selling it!)

So, if you make a video with music that’s protected by copyright, it’s not okay to publish this on a public blog, social media, YouTube, and so on. And you couldn’t show your video at a public event. However, it’s okay if the video is just being shown privately to teachers, students, and families at home/school.

It’s also important to note that background music is not considered “educational use”.

Paying For Music And Streaming

There are popular sites and apps where you can pay to download or stream music legally — for example, Apple Music, Google Play Music, and Spotify.

You can listen to your downloaded music yourself, but can’t upload the music to your blog or to a video or other project you’re working on.

It’s fine to stream music videos on sites like YouTube too but it’s not usually legal to download the audio from a YouTube video.

Also, streaming music is meant for personal use — not for a public broadcast.

As Spotify says,

…it’s not possible to use Spotify in public places (such as bars, restaurants, stores, schools, etc.). You may only make personal, non-commercial, entertainment use of the content.

Most streaming services are similar.

Embedding Music Videos

Embedding a music video from a site like YouTube or Vimeo into your blog is usually allowed. You can also link to music files or videos that are publicly available on the web.

Using Purchased CDs

Some people still listen to music by buying a CD or borrowing one from the library, although, of course, digital music is becoming a lot more popular than CDs in many parts of the world.

Again, you can’t copy the music from a CD and use it for another public project (e.g. upload it to your blog or add it to a public video). It doesn’t matter if you have purchased the CD legitimately.

If you’d like to learn more about using music in education for other purposes including school concerts and online learning, check out this fact sheet from the National Association of Music Education.

Creative Commons Or Copyright Free Music

Even though most music out there is protected by copyright, there are many places online to find Creative Commons or other copyright free music options.

You might first like to check if your district has any subscriptions you can make the most of. For example, Soundzabound.

If this isn’t an option, there are lots of other sources of free music online.

Three options for free music and audio are:

• Dig CC Mixter
• YouTube Audio Library
• BBC Sound Effects

Let’s take a look at how these three sites work.

Dig CC Mixter

Dig CC Mixter offers thousands of hours of free music.

The music on this site has different Creative Commons licenses so you need to check whether you need to attribute the music or not.

Educational Blogger Richard Byrne explains in a video how to use Dig CC Mixter and filter by license.

YouTube Audio Library

YouTube has a great library of music you can use. Visit the Audio Library on YouTube to browse the selections.

If you click on Attribution, you can filter your results to find music that does or doesn’t require attribution.

You can preview the music to see what it sounds like and download the music you want to use.

Here’s an example called Sunshine in my Heart by Jingle Punks.

BBC Sound Effects

During 2018, the BBC made over 16,000 sound effects available to use. These sound effects are not actually Creative Commons — they’re protected by copyright but the BBC gives permission for the sound effects be used for personal, educational, or research purposes.

You can browse by category to find the sort of sound effect you’re after for your project.

You should put a link in your project or blog post to say that your sound effects are from the BBC and link to their site.

Here is an example of a sound clip. This is the sound of the surf at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia.

Surf – Bondi Beach, bbc.co.uk, copyright 2020

Copyright And Videos

Where would we be without all the awesome video content we now have at our fingertips on the web? In the education world, extensive video libraries like YouTube are becoming priceless.

Video copyright can be complicated as video can draw together multiple elements — video footage, images, music, sound effects, and so on. When using, sharing, or creating video, you need to make sure all of these elements are not protected by copyright.

Can You Link Or Embed Videos?

You are free to embed any video from sites like YouTube, Vimeo,TeacherTube, TedED etc. on your blog or website as long as it gives you the embed option. It’s a good idea to add a link to the video as well.

Linking or embedding from YouTube or other sites on the web is not considered copying. Just make sure the videos aren’t violating copyright. If they are, they’ll probably be taken down by the site eventually but some content gets through.

Can You Download Videos From Sites Like YouTube?

While linking and embedding videos is okay, you shouldn’t download videos from YouTube. Sometimes this is tempting for teachers especially if they have unreliable internet connectivity, they’re worried about a video being removed in future, or they want to add a video to a learning management system. However, downloading videos raises many legal questions and generally violates copyright.

Additionally, you can’t necessarily use parts of videos from YouTube (or other sources) to make mashups or remixes. If you want to cut or remix videos, it is better to use Creative Commons content, public domain content, or request permission from the copyright holder.

Uploading Your Own Videos To YouTube

If you want to upload your videos to a site like YouTube remember to respect copyright. You should only upload videos that you made or that you have permission to upload. Make sure there aren’t copyrighted elements (e.g. music or images) in your videos. Of course, get permission from your school or district if these videos are being used professionally.

Educators should be especially careful about permission if using footage of students. Some teachers use the blurring tools available in YouTube to blur student faces and identifying objects. Richard Byrne shares a demonstration of how to do this on his website.

If you’re a creator and would like to learn more about videos and copyright, YouTube has a useful playlist of eight videos on their YouTube Creators channel.

Showing Videos To Students

Teachers can show videos in class for educational reasons, such as videos legally uploaded to YouTube (however, some districts don’t allow YouTube to be used in schools).

If you have a legitimate copy of an offline video (e.g. DVD), you’re allowed to use this in class for face-to-face teaching as long as it’s for educational purposes (not for entertainment or a reward).

Remember, this would be in line with the U.S. fair use policies we described above, so check your own country’s guidelines if in doubt. If you’re in Australia, a useful website for all things copyright is https://www.smartcopying.edu.au

Copyright And Text Or Curriculum Materials

Say you’ve purchased a textbook or other teaching materials. You can obviously use these materials in class and you might be able to make photocopies, however, in most cases you can’t upload purchased curriculum or books to a public site. That means don’t put scans, photos, or PDFs of textbooks, worksheets, posters, picture books, novels, or other learning materials on your public blog or website.

If in doubt, seek guidance from the company you purchased the curriculum materials from about reuse.

Marketplaces Like Teachers Pay Teachers

Not so long ago, we were all purchasing our curriculum materials from professional organizations. Now anyone can be a creator and with the rise of sites like Teachers Pay Teachers, new copyright questions have arisen. As Education Week has pointed out, copyright infringement is rife on this popular marketplace.

What does this mean for you? Well, if you’re uploading to a site like Teachers Pay Teachers you need to make sure you have permission to use all your elements including fonts and images.

If you’re downloading resources from Teachers Pay Teachers, you need to seek clarification about how these can be used. And also keep an eye out for resources that look like they could be violating copyright before you use them (e.g. copies of a published textbook). There is limited vetting of copyright materials on Teachers Pay Teachers. As a savvy internet user, we all need to have an awareness of the larger copyright traps that are out there.

Link To Curriculum Resources

Linking may be a useful alternative to copying curriculum materials. If third-party text, articles, or other content is available on the web, teachers or students could include a link to the content on their blog or website.

Like embedding, linking is not a copyright activity because you’re not “copying” the content. You’re just providing a path to the original location that the readers can access themselves.

Creative Commons Textbooks And Curriculum

Another option to avoid copyright violations is to use curriculum materials that have Creative Commons licenses. One example is OpenStax. You can browse to find textbooks for a range of topics and the materials are free to use however you see fit.

You’ll find some more open textbooks and course materials listed on this Open Washington page.

Copyright Infringement

We know that most images, text, music, and other content are protected by copyright by default. Using work protected by copyright without permission is called copyright infringement. This is unethical and illegal. “Using” the work might involve reproducing, displaying, distributing, performing, or making your own derivatives.

But I Won’t Be Caught…

If only that were true.

Google makes it incredibly easy for companies and content creators to seek out those posting their work on the web. In fact, most large companies now aggressively patrol the internet looking for copyright infringement.

Sadly, we are also noticing more and more “law firms” and organizations out there looking for copyrighted content as a way of generating business. They then contact the copyright holder offering their services to get the content removed (for a fee of course). It is a ruthless (and apparently profitable) practice.

Another issue that is important to be aware of involves Creative Commons Zero sites. There have been cases where people have used images from free image sites like Unsplash and then were hit with a copyright infringement case. Sometimes people put images up on these sites in order to sue. They leave the images up on the site until they are downloaded multiple times and then remove them. This is a dark side of Creative Commons Zero that’s important to be aware of.

What If I Am Caught?

In many countries, copyright infringement brings hefty penalties including fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars and imprisonment, depending on the situation.

Of course, a good offense is your best defense. Check your blogs and class websites for any potentially offending material. Has anyone uploaded images straight from other websites or Google? Are there are educational materials (e.g. copies of textbooks) that shouldn’t be there? Has copyrighted music been used publicly? If you find anything, just remove it.

The law requires copyright holders to give you (and the host of your site, such as Edublogs, WordPress, etc.) an official notification. Take these seriously and act quickly to remove what they want if you are in the wrong. That should be the end of it.

Here at Edublogs and CampusPress, we’re contacted about copyrighted materials regularly. These are mostly images from Google, curriculum documents, or PDFs (e.g. textbooks or sheet music), or music files.

We were once notified about a teacher with a blog on Edublogs that had a harmless world map image on his blog that he had presumably found using Google image search. When we contacted him telling him why we had removed the image, he asked if he and his students could write an apology letter to the copyright holder.

It was excellent – turning what could be a bit of an embarrassing mistake into a teachable moment for his students. Now this teacher had a good reason to discuss copyright and Creative Commons with his students.

Even if you haven’t done anything wrong, having a space to publish online like a blog or website is one of the best ways students can learn about copyright and Creative Commons.

Copyright Considerations When Publishing Online

Whether you’re a teacher, a student, or a regular blogger, when you’re publishing online you must do your best to be a responsible digital citizen. This means respecting others’ work and respecting copyright.

Here are three key things to remember when publishing online to be a legal and ethical digital citizen:

1) Steer Clear Of Google Images

Don’t copy images off Google or other websites. Even if you include an attribution it is still illegal and unethical.

If you like an image and don’t know where it originally came from, a reverse search might help.

If an image is created by someone that you can contact, you could always ask their permission to use it.

Remember the best bet is to find Creative Commons or public domain images. Otherwise, take/make your own images or purchase some from a stock photography website.

2) Embed Or Link To Audio Or Video Clips

If you’re going to include a video or an audio clip, embed the file from the source and include a link as well. Don’t download audio or video files as this brings up many questions about copyright.

If you’re embedding from a site like YouTube, make sure the content doesn’t violate copyright law. YouTube is usually pretty good at cracking down on this but there is some content on there that does violate copyright — e.g. copies of television shows.

3) Never Copy Someone Else’s Blog Post

You might find this a little hard to believe but unfortunately people copy posts from other blogs and publish them on their own site all the time. Or they publish the blog post in another format such as a PDF document or slideshow.

And in case you’re wondering, copying someone’s blog post and then including an attribution does not make this okay.

If you do want to share someone else’s blog post on your own blog, consider writing a short description of the post on your blog and then inviting readers to click on a link to read the post themselves. In your own post, you could include some key points about what you agreed or disagreed with. Or maybe you can expand on the topic in a different direction. All this would be perfectly acceptable and no doubt the author would appreciate the interaction.

Using Quotes In Blog Posts

Hopefully you now know that you definitely can’t copy and paste someone else’s whole blog post or image, but you can include a quote of some text.

Here are a few points to be aware of that we included in our post on The Edublogger about quotes:

• Make it obvious which words are your own, and which words belong to someone else by using quotation marks or block quotes.
• Make your quotes brief. There are no universal rules here. Some larger organizations have guidelines around how much you can quote (e.g. Hubspot’s rules are 75 words). If you’re unsure or think you might be using too much of someone’s article, contact them to ask permission. Never copy the whole post.
• Always include the person’s name, and link to their site, article, or book if you can.
• If you’re using blockquotes, the attribution could be before the quote, inside it, or below it.
• If you shorten a quote, use an ellipsis (…) in place of the missing words.
• If you’re adding any words or corrections to the quote, use brackets.

Adding Your Own Creative Commons License To Your Work

Earlier, we looked at the six types of Creative Commons licenses available to creators. If you’re publishing online, you’re a creator too! And you don’t have to be a professional. Maybe you share memes or lesson resources on social media? Perhaps you write blog posts? Maybe you take your own photographs that you share online?

Have you ever considered adding a Creative Commons license to your own original work?

As the Creative Commons organization explains,

When you apply a CC license, you give permission to anyone to use your material for the full duration of applicable copyright and similar rights.

This is therefore a serious decision but an important one. You can contribute to building a collection of art and knowledge that’s accessible to anyone in the world. How cool is that! You remain in control by choosing your own license, and people who like your work can use or share it without having to contact you for permission.

Before you choose a Creative Commons license, you need to make sure you are the copyright owner and the work is copyrightable (e.g. in a tangible format).

If you’re unsure which license to choose for your own work, there is an interactive tool on the Creative Commons website. This tool suggests a license after you answer a few questions. It also gives you a CC button that you can attach to your work to display your license.

If you would like to display your creative commons license on your blog, the easiest way is to use a text widget in your sidebar.

From your dashboard, go to Appearance > Widgets and select a Text widget to add to your sidebar. Paste the code provided by your Creative Commons license provider in the widget’s text box, and click “Save”.

Adults aren’t the only ones who can add Creative Commons licenses to their work. In many countries, children can too. What an authentic way for students to learn about copyright and sharing online.

Perhaps a whole class or school could make a library of Creative Commons content (e.g. images or music) that can be used freely by the education community? Talk about authentic learning!

Conclusion

If you’ve made it this far into the guide you will have realized that copyright is a vast and complex topic, however, you don’t need to be an expert to understand the basics.

We’ve made a collection of slides which you’re welcome to use in your own classroom or perhaps you’d like to use them as part of your professional development program. Want to make a copy? Scroll down for instructions (don’t request access).

Want a copy of the Google Slides presentation? Don’t request access, just follow the steps below.

1) Click on this link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jK-_bTIBa9CZAC-bqKd0PQc7ohG9L47KSdcvfHgIxqw/copy?usp=sharing

2) You will be prompted to make a copy (screenshot below).

3) The Slides will be saved in your Google Drive.

4) You can edit the Google Slides to suit.

Before we conclude, take a moment to reflect back on the rules to remember about copyright.

1. Just because you found it online, doesn’t mean it’s free to use (even if you’re a teacher or student).
2. There are a lot of resources you can use freely including work that has a Creative Commons license or is in the public domain.
3. You have a right as a creator to have your work protected from copying and you can also give your own content a Creative Commons license.
4. If in doubt about using content, ask the creator for permission, find a free alternative, purchase an alternative, or make your own material.
5. Instead of looking for loopholes, consider whether you’re being the most responsible and ethical digital citizen you can be.

Do you have any other tips to add about copyright for educators, students, or bloggers? Be sure to leave a comment and let us know. We’d love to hear your suggestions.

For any specific questions regarding your own copyright dilemmas, please consult professional legal advice.

About Us

Edublogs is the oldest and most trusted web publishing platform for students and teachers around the globe. We have helped create and publish more than five million blogs, websites and portfolios since 2005 while providing teacher-friendly, student-safe WordPress solutions at scale.

We offer both cost-efficient and free options, along with site development, hosting, security, plugin and theme support to ensure your digital presence is meeting your goals in a fast-changing digital world.Want to learn more? Contact us to receive more information.