Local District 4 Instructional Technology News

There are numerous sites with free images, but few are considered pubic domain.  Here is a list of ten sites with great quality images and multimedia content.  This list was put together by Garr Reynolds on his blog Presentation Zen.  These sites have large versions of their images for you to use with your lessons or have your students use as they create podcasts, movies, digital storybooks, etc. Large images are better than small ones because it gives you the flexibility to resize them if they are too large for your project or if you simply want to crop a section of the photograph to highlight a particular element.  As educators, we are able to use most images for educational use, but it is always good practice to check the terms of use, just to be safe.
• Earth Observatory (NASA). So much goodness here. I’m sure every teacher already has this site bookmarked.
• Visible Earth (NASA). This is a new collection of earth imagery from NASA.  Click on the image to get a much larger size.

• Great Images in NASA. A collection of about a thousand images of historical interest scanned at high-resolution in several sizes.
• NASA multimedia. Includes many high-quality photos as well.
• Photos by Astronauts. A gazillion cool images from space.
• NOAA Photo Library. Search the site or browse through “collections” at the top. Hundreds and hundreds of historical photos in there too.
• Uncle Sam’s Photos. A directory of the U.S Government’s free stock photo sites.
• The (US) National Archives. The National Archives has more than 30 million photos stored in several buildings in the US, many of them are available online. High-rez photos of The Constitution and The Bill of Rights, etc. as well as loads of photos from WWII in general and Japanese American Internment, and so on. I think I have seen some of the WWII images in Ken Burns’ s documentary The War (highly recommended).

• WWII posters. Not too many high-rez images here, but very interesting. Sizes may be good enough for slides.

• Public Domain Pictures. A repository for free public domain photos. Easy to search.

If you know any other public domain sites that offer good quality in the form of historical archives, etc. please share your links in the comments section below. Thanks.

Tags: free, images, pictures, public domain, Resources

In a recent eSchool News article, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a first-of-its-kind initiative to offer digital textbooks for high school math and science classes.  In an effort to cut costs without sacrificing valuable educational programs, Gov. Schwarzenegger made a request to Secretary of Education Glen Thomas to work with the State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell and State Board of Education President Ted Mitchell to develop a list of standards-aligned open resources.  The list is said to be ready by August 10.

Once the list is released, it will be up to the local school districts to decide whether or not to go with digital content versus the traditional printed media.  It is also to soon to speculate what the cost savings will be and whether or not teachers will be open to the idea of not having text books.

Other issues to consider are going to be: having enough tech support for schools, delivering professional development and addressing the Williams Case, which mandates that every child must have a textbook or instructional materials, or both, to use in class and to take home.

It’s great that California is finally making the transition to using digital textbooks.  School districts could be saving millions of dollars, which in turn can be used to fund teachers and other program for schools, such as the arts.

For full details, go to www.eschoolnews.com and click on the tab for the Current Issue (July 2009).  You must have an account to view the article.  sign up is free.

Tags: article, books, digital textbooks, eSchool News, governor