Explorer App Smash with Photo Mapo, Pic Collage, and Thinglink

After learning about explorers in Social Studies, Mr. Wegner's 5th graders were excited to show everyone what they know.  Mr. Wegner and I developed a fun project that allowed students to share their knowledge and gave them a chance to play around with smashing the apps Photo Mapo, Pic Collage, and Thinglink.

First, students used the app Photo Mapo to create a map collage of the place that their assigned explorer discovered.  They also included some information about the route that the explorer took and the place of discovery.

Next, students used Image Quest to find copyright-free images that represented their explorers.  They then created a collage in the app Pic Collage.  They also added their image created in Photo Mapo to their Pic Collage, giving them the chance to see how easy it is to smash these two apps together.

Once the collage was complete, students uploaded this image to Thinglink to create an "interactive image."  In Thinglink, students were able to add "hotspots" to each image to highlight information that was important about the explorer.  Their hotspots included videos of themselves describing the explorer, links to relevant websites, other images, and text comments.

Here are some of the 5th graders' finished products.  They had a blast doing their first app smash!