All of us know that visual content can make an eLearning course more appealing for the learner. However, there are many things to consider when looking for appropriate images for your eLearning.
First and foremost, you want each image to support and add to the content of the particular slide – you definitely want to avoid the impression that images have been added for no other purpose than a pop of color. You also need to consider whether the image matches the theme and overall style of the course. For example, you might not want to introduce very bright and childish imagery into corporate training on identity theft.
Apart from all this, there’s also the question of time and resources. We don’t always have the opportunity to have somebody produce that perfect image for us or to buy images online. The good news is – you may not have to! There is a great variety of websites out there that offer a wide selection of high-quality images that you can download and use for free.
Here are just a few of the most popular sites that can come to the rescue when you’re looking for images to enhance your eLearning course:
1. Unsplash
One of our favorites here at Fastercourse, Unsplash offers a lot of wonderful, high-resolution photos. You can simply browse for images or look at inspiring themed collections. We especially enjoy the great choice of business and technology related images. All photos published on Unsplash can be used for free in any way you like, including commercial purposes, and giving credit to the author isn’t required.
2. Pixabay
Pixabay is another site that allows you to use all content freely (CC0 licence). Apart from beautiful and diverse photos, Pixabay also offers collections of illustrations, vector graphics and even videos.
3. Pexels
Another rich collection of images that we really enjoy is available on Pexels. Again, you can download, edit and use the images for personal or commercial projects. An interesting feature under the Browse tab is Photo by Color section that allows you to find images that match the color story of your project.
4. Flickr
Image from Flickr made by photobtd. Licence CC BY-SA 2.0
Flickr has a large library of beautiful photos, so you are sure to find some great things here. However, when it comes to licences, you have to be a bit more careful when using Flickr images. Even though you can filter the images to show only creative commons, quite often the licence for the images will be Attribution 2.0 Generic (not CC0), so you need to make sure that you credit the author properly and provide information about any changes made.
5. Picjumbo
If you’re looking for something a little bit more unique, you might want to consider smaller sites that are owned by a single author, for example, Picjumbo. All photos are taken by Viktor Hanacek and can be used freely (all conditions are explained in the FAQ section).
6. Momenti
Of course, being from Latvia, I can’t help but mention this site. Here you will find beautiful and inspiring images of Latvian nature and people. All images can be used for any purpose without restrictions (licence CC0).
Summary
So, as you can see, there are many talented and creative people who are determined to share their work and bring some beauty to the world (and your eLearning) – you just have to know where to look!
P.S. The conditions for using the materials available on these and other similar websites may change, so we encourage you to always check the licence for the images you want to use. You can find some more information about licences here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
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