License-It
The objective of this module is to explain the importance of licensing photos so that others know they can use them in their media projects, while still maintaining copyright ownership.
Creative Commons Video
Introduction
Since you are the copyright owner of all photos that you take it is important to license your photos in order to make them available to others. Licensing photos is beneficial for two primary reasons. First it lets search engines and others know that your photos are available for use in media projects and the specific terms of that use. Second it protects your rights as the copyright holder against those that use your photos without complying with the terms of the licensing agreement.
Creative Commons Licenses
Creative Commons is recognized as the easiest way to license your photos. They have a number of different licensing classifications as covered in the video. I believe that for educational purposes it is best to license photos with the least restrictive license available. This is called a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license and allows anyone to freely use or modify a photo as long as it is attributed to you. This way your photo is still protected by copyright but allows others to freely use it.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
It is best to put the copyright license information right into the user metadata of the photo itself. For a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license the statement put into the copyright field of the XMP metadata would be “This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.” This way search engines will be able to determine the licensing terms of your photo, rank it accordingly and make it available for users who are looking for photos with minimal licensing requirements.