How to Create B-roll Media Galleries to Share With Students

In last Sunday's Practical Ed Tech newsletter I wrote about the idea of creating a b-roll media gallery to share with your students. The idea of creating a b-roll media gallery is to compile a collection of image, video, and audio files that your students can use in their multimedia projects. By doing this your students will have a place that they can find media that you've already screened for content and for copyright compliance. 

In this short video I demonstrate two ways to create a b-roll media gallery to share with your students. The first method utilizes Google Drive. The second method utilizes OneDrive. 

Applications for Education
If you're an elementary school teacher, creating a b-roll media gallery is a good way to make sure that your students are able to quickly find appropriate images to use in their projects. At the middle school and high school levels, having a b-roll media gallery can be a good back-up option to have when students say that they "can't find anything" that's appropriate for their project.

Coverr - One of My New Favorites in 2021

I'm taking this week to recharge and get ready for the next session of the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp. For the next few days I'm going to highlight some of my favorite new and new-to-me tools so far this year. 

Coverr is a relatively new website that is offering free B-roll video clips that you can download and reuse in your own projects. Most of the videos are silent and are short clips of less than a minute. Downloading them takes just one click. Registration is not required in order to download from Coverr and, according to Coverr's terms of service, attribution is not required although it is appreciated. 

You can search for videos on Coverr by entering simple keywords like "dog" and "cat." The other option for discovering videos on Coverr is to simply browse through the thematic collections of stock video clips. 

Coverr's user interface does have one element that might cause some confusion for students. Coverr appears to generate revenue through Shutter Stock's affiliate program. That's why there is a row of Shutter Stock video clips on the top of every page and another a little lower on each page. It would be fairly easy for someone to overlook the Shutter Stock label and end up clicking on one of the videos that isn't available for free. 

Applications for Education

Pixabay has been my go-to resource for free B-roll video clips for years. Coverr probably isn't going to supplant Pixabay as a my go-to, but it does represent an alternative source for free video clips that teachers and students can use without worrying about copyright infringement. 

A Convenient New Way to See Who Has Access to Your Google Drive Folders

Creating shared Google Drive folders provides teachers and students with a great way to contribute to a pool of B-roll media, to share study guides, or to collaborate on research projects. Keeping track of who has access to those folders can be a bit cumbersome. That will soon change as Google announced yesterday that a new view of shared Google Drive folders is coming soon. Over the next couple of weeks you will notice a new "people icon" to Google Drive folders. You will now be able to hover your cursor over the "people icon" to see a list of people who have access to your folders.

Applications for Education
The best way to have students avoid accidentally using copyrighted images or videos in their own projects is to use media that they've created themselves. One of the strategies that I frequently recommend to teachers as a way to help students avoid any copyright issues in their work is to use media from a classroom b-roll gallery. You can build this gallery by having students contribute pictures, video clips, and sounds to a shared Google Drive folder. In the video below I demonstrate how to create a shared Google Drive folder.

Collaboratively Create Photo Albums on Google Photos

Back in September Google announced that soon we would be able to create shared photo albums on Google Photos. This week that became true. Now you can collaboratively create photo and video albums through Google Photos. To collaborate on an album simply create your album then share the link to your album much like you would do with a Google Document.


Applications for Education
For years I have recommended that teachers create a shared Google Drive folder that students can access to find pictures that they can re-use in multimedia projects. Using the new Google Photos shared albums feature could be a great way to have students contribute pictures they've taken to a shared album for classmates to access to find images to re-use in projects.

How to Create a B-roll Media Folder in Google Drive

The best way to have students avoid accidentally using copyrighted images or videos in their own projects is to use media that they've created themselves. One of the strategies that I frequently recommend to teachers as a way to help students avoid any copyright issues in their work is to use media from a classroom b-roll gallery. You can build this gallery by having students contribute pictures, video clips, and sounds to a shared Google Drive folder. In the video below I demonstrate how to create a shared Google Drive folder.

Use Google Sites File Cabinet Templates to Create a B-Roll Media Gallery

Over the years I've written a lot about the idea of creating b-roll galleries of images, videos, and sounds for your students to use in their multimedia projects. In building a gallery of media that you and your students have created, you're building a resource that students can dive into when they need media for their projects. Google Sites is one platform on which you could build a gallery of media. Use the "file cabinet" template to create a page in your Google Site. Then use Custom Page-level Permissions to allow your students to upload and download media on that page. Video directions for using Page-level Permissions are available here.

Click image to view in full size. 

Click image to view in full size. 

Click image to view in full size. 

An Often Untapped Source of Digital Devices for Classrooms

Perhaps you've heard that Apple recently released a new iPhone (#sarcasm). This is a good time to remind you of an often untapped source of digital devices for your classroom. Ask your students' parents to donate their old phones to your classroom when they upgrade their mobile phonphonees. You will probably find that most of those phones can at the very least be used for taking pictures to be used in multimedia projects. The odds are also good that most of the phones you collect now will have some type of web browser.

Tips for gathering and using old mobile phones in your classroom:
1. Ask parents to donate their old phones. Send out the request on your blog or classroom newsletter.
2. Put a donation box in your school's main office or library to make it easy for parents to drop-off donations.
3. Make sure you tell parents to clear all personal data from their phones before making the donation.
4. Communicate with your IT department to make sure that you can connect the donated devices to your school's network. Even if you have permissions for adding devices to your school's network, it is a good idea to check with IT to make sure your network can support an influx of new devices connecting to it.
5. Use the cameras on the donated devices to create B-roll image and video galleries.

B-Roll, Photo Collages, and Writing and Math Prompts

A stray cat in my neighborhood.
I named him Geoffrey. 

One of the strategies that I frequently recommend to teachers as a way to help students avoid any copyright issues in their work is to use media from a classroom b-roll gallery. You can build this gallery by having students contribute pictures to a shared Google Drive, Box, or Dropbox folder. Students can add pictures from their mobile devices or contribute public domain images that they have found online.

Besides being a good place to find images to use in multimedia projects, having a b-roll gallery of images could be a good source of writing prompts. Students who struggle to get started on a descriptive writing assignment could benefit from looking through a gallery of interesting images. For example, the picture in this post inspired me to create a very short story about a lost cat.

Students who struggle to get started on a descriptive writing assignment could benefit from first creating a photo collage about the event or concept that they need to write about. In thinking about the images that they select, they're also thinking about what they will say about each image. PicCollage and PicMonkey are two good options for creating photo collages.

Earlier this year I wrote about the Math Photo A Day project. That project is over, but you could create your own Math Photo A Day project in your school. The project asks students to take photographs of things representing various topics and concepts in elementary school level mathematics. For example, a challenge that you could give to students is to take pictures of objects that have specific shapes in them. This could be a homework assignment that students do with their parents or you could make it a classroom assignment.

Another approach to the Math Photo A Day project is to take pictures of examples of bad math in the real world. Use those photos as the prompt for simple mathematics lessons. Read more about this idea in Fun With Bad Math In Pictures.

How to Use B-Roll Footage In Videos

Earlier today at the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp I talked about the idea of creating a gallery of b-roll media that your students can use in their slideshows and videos. That suggestion was part of a larger conversation about helping students avoid using another person's work and accidentally violating that person's copyright rights. One way to avoid any worry about copyright is by having students use media that they have created from scratch. Building up a gallery of media that is large enough for all of your students to use takes time. One way to build up the gallery is to create shared Box, Dropbox, or Google Drive folders that students put b-roll submissions into.

As the folks at Wistia explain and demonstrate in the video below, using b-roll footage can be a good way to improve your videos. Watch the video below to learn how they do it.

Build a Media Gallery With Your Students in 2013

One of the challenges of having students create videos, slideshows, podcasts, and other multimedia productions in your classroom is making sure that they are respectful of copyright. One way to avoid any worry about copyright is by having students use media that they have created from scratch. Of course, building up a gallery of media that is large enough for all of your students to use takes time. To start building up a gallery of images, sounds, and video clips that your students can use in their projects commit to a 365 project for 2013. This year have your students make daily contributions to a group media gallery. If a daily schedule is too frequent for you try a weekly schedule with your students. Here are some tools that you can use to collect and create your classroom media gallery.

Tools for creating a classroom media gallery.
Aviary's Mobile image editor is a free app for iOS and Android devices. The Aviary mobile app allows you to quickly crop images and add effects to your images. What I like about Aviary's mobile app is that unlike Instagram you don't have to register or join any social networks.

To capture quick audio recordings try AudioBoo for Android and iOS devices.

To organize your gallery of B-roll media try using DropItToMe to have students contribute to a DropBox folder. If you're working in a Google Apps for Education environment use shared folders in Google Drive.

The Project 365 app for iPhone and iPad provides a place to organize your images in a calendar format and share you images via Facebook, Twitter, and email. The "pro" version of the app ($0.99) removes advertising, includes image cropping tools, and offers immediate upload to your Flickr account.

The YouTube Upload Widget installed on your blog or website is a good tool for collecting video clips that your students have recorded. To install the YouTube Upload Widget you do have to be somewhat comfortable with HTML. My HTML skills are crude but I was still able to install the widget into a test blog by following YouTube's documentation here.

Create a B-Roll Media Gallery for Your Classroom

Credit: Alexkerhead

Whenever I run workshops on creating videos I stress that the best way to avoid any worries about copyright is to have students use their own video clips, images, and sounds in their projects. But often this is not feasible because you don't have enough time in your class schedule for kids to go out and capture or create all of the media they might need. One solution to this is to teach students to search for Creative Commons licensed works. Another solution is to have a gallery of B-roll media that your students can choose from.

To create a B-roll gallery you and your students should be taking pictures, recording videos, and capturing audio throughout the school year. Do this for a couple of school years and you will build a useful gallery of B-roll media.

Tools for creating a B-roll gallery:
This list can get you started, but it's just the tip of iceberg when you consider how many web and mobile apps are available to you and your students.

Aviary's Mobile image editor is a free app for iOS and Android devices. The Aviary mobile app allows you to quickly crop images and add effects to your images. What I like about Aviary's mobile app is that unlike Instagram you don't have to register or join any social networks.

To capture quick audio recordings try AudioBoo for Android and iOS devices.

To organize your gallery of B-roll media try using DropItToMe to have students contribute to a DropBox folder. If you're working in a Google Apps for Education environment use shared folders in Google Drive.