This past year I have started to incorporate pictures more into my class presentations and materials. When I began, I started with images that I had taken around my shop or at locations I visited. While this has given me plethora of my own stock imagery to use, it can be difficult to find the right subject and location for the topics I teach. As I explored different options of how to get imagery without violating copyrights I found that most had quite high fees that I couldn’t readily afford. I then came across a site called Unsplash, which as open-source royalty free photos that can be used on non-commercial work. I really the love the quality of the photos here and they have a wide variety of topics that you can find photos on. Unsplash also has an ever growing collection of video clips that can be used as well. While for many you it is not required, I prefer to give a trackback or citation to the photo’s author as this helps them to gain a following and keep doing the work they are doing.

So why add photos and videos to your materials?

I began adding photos and videos to my materials for a couple of reasons. First being that it breaks up the long sections of text, this is the same reason why my paper textbooks do this. It gives the reader a mental break and changes what they are looking it. It can also help with material layout and organization. Secondly, photos and videos can be give a visual representation to the informational concepts that you as the teacher are trying to convey to the students. This is especially important in an online or hybrid class when you may not have direct face-to-face contact with the students. Finally, they simply make your materials visually more interesting which increases the likelihood the material will be read through by the students.