Recently I have been thinking about how I can set up my classroom to inspire my students. I was looking online for some interesting posters, and to be frank, there was very little that appealed to me. I was mulling over the idea of producing my own posters, when I was struck by an idea that now seems very obvious: why not get prints of great photos from the web, and have them framed.

The images are related to my role within the school, which is not only to teach ICT, but also to promote environmental awareness and positive values amongst the students. I am thinking of grouping the images into two collections: Our World and Personal Heroes. The remaining two photos (which are very large) will be displayed on their own. Once the images are up, I will post some photos here.

Despite the fact that many teachers have rejected Wikipedia, I maintain that it is one of the richest resources available to teachers. As proof of this, consider the fact that all of the images shown below are from the Wikimedia Commons, which acts as Wikipedia’s media gallery. What’s particularly neat about this is that the images are all provided under permissive licenses (such as Creative Commons): this means that all of this work is legal, provided I follow a few simple rules.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2009/03/23/photographer-collection-emilio-morenatti/

This collection of photos provide great stimulus for an almost limitless range of tasks including descriptive writing, character studies, studying culture and difference.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/02/at_work.html

An interesting, visual look at the work people do around the world every day.  If you are studying globalisation, the importance of labour, production techniques, issues of scale, culture or photography, this resource ought to be of interest. Like it or not, the work we do has a huge impact on how we are perceived, both by our selves and by others: looking at the huge range of work being performed can help put things into perspective.

http://picmarkr.com/

Picmarkr makes it easy to add watermarks to images, allowing content creators to protect their work before it is shared online.

http://www.cssdrive.com/imagepalette/index.php

Generate colour palettes from images. This tool is great for considering colour in design, as well as for creating a palette of colors from an image when designing a website.

http://editor.pixastic.com

Pixtastic is an online image editor (as well as being a JavaScript library). As such, it provides a quick, free and easy way to edit images online (meaning you do not need to install any desktop software). This makes it really useful if you only have a small number of tasks to perform, or you find yourself on a computer where you cannot install any software.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NormandySupply.jpg

A large picture of the Normandy beach landings; useful for stimulating student discussion and interest. As it is in the public domain, this image can be freely used in the creation of presentations, texts, videos and more.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/nca/1906/kap/lawrence.php

An insanely large picture of the San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake; useful for stimulating student discussion and interest.

http://tenbyten.org/10×10.html

Scanning the web for news, this site produces a 10×10 grid of words and pictures that “Define the Time”: it is a great example of a mashup, where content is drawn from a number of sources and used to create something new and different. Mashups are a large part of Web 2.0, and permit great creativity, speed and flexibility in web development.

http://www.earthalbum.com/

This site combines google maps and flickr popular photos into a great mashup giving a quick overview of countries around the world.