PicCollage Grid & Photo Editor

Versatile, intuitive, engaging collage maker yields impressive designs

Learning rating

Community rating

Based on 13 reviews

Privacy rating

Expert evaluation by Common Sense

Grades

8–12

Subjects & Topics

Arts

Price: Free, Paid
Platforms: Android, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Kindle Fire, Windows

Pros: Powerful, in-app photo editor and layout tools allow students to create custom, pro-like visuals.

Cons: Lots of in-app ads and a watermark in free version; sharing features default to public.

Bottom Line: With some privacy setup, and possibly upgrading to the paid version, this can be an excellent design tool for creating custom collages, teaching graphic design, layout, and photo editing.

Empower students to design engaging collages, posters, and visual presentations. Get creative: Have students make custom logos for your class website or thumbnails for YouTube videos; compile photos from a memorable field trip or class project; make custom posters to promote school performances. Studying shapes? Snap pics around the school, collate images in a cool layout, and label elements to show off learning. Prepping for a science fair? Customize displays, complete with photos, text, graphics, and animated GIFs. There's a PicCollage Teacher Ambassador Program, too, for more ideas.

PicCollage's powerful photo editor is ideal for teaching graphic design using student-chosen images. Creations can be shared online and "app smashed" with other apps like FotoBabble or ChatterPix to add audio or voice-over. Know that privacy settings default to public, but social features/web access can be easily and independently disabled in "School Settings."

PicCollage is a creativity app that allows users to create fun and playful designs combining photos, text, drawings, and stickers. Students select a layout, then add text, stickers, backgrounds, a freestyle drawing, or photos/GIFs from a device's library or the web and then activate the in-app camera. Single-tap an element to move/change size; double-tap to add effects, clip, duplicate, move to back, set as background, or delete. PicCollage is an Adobe Creative Cloud-connected app, with a powerful photo editor that yields professional-like results. Creations save in-app and can be shared by email, by SMS, and across social media. Students can print to many paper sizes or even have their creations printed on a custom mobile phone case for a fee.

The default settings let students explore and remix other user's creations. Students can also search for and follow other users in-app and at the companion website. Go to "School Settings" to disable social features and/or block web photos. The free version has pop-up ads (that you must tap to close) and frequent prompting to remove watermarks and ads (for a fee), and it comes with a limited amount of stickers, backgrounds, and fonts. Hundreds of theme-based stickers and backgrounds are available for purchase.

PicCollage is an engaging, high-reward creation tool that offers students visually creative ways to present their learning. It's also a great choice for teaching intro to graphic design and photo editing. Consider using PicCollage to help demonstrate and present learning in a digital portfolio, to conduct formative assessments following a lesson, to showcase culminating projects, or to make digital posters. While it has great in-app layouts, it lacks the option to layer grid lines onto projects to aid in alignment (think rule of thirds and the golden ratio). Still, students can create impressive collages and have access to industry-standard photo-editing tools.

Students can share creations with ease, which can be great for publishing but presents some privacy concerns. By default, PicCollage prompts students to connect and share on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This can be toggled on or off in the settings of PicCollage (as can whether the photo search includes photos from the web), but, of course, students can just go into settings and turn this functionality back on. Regardless of privacy settings, students can share via email, SMS, and URL. Beyond the privacy concerns, ads can be pretty intrusive in the free version; students must endure/opt out of periodic ads and are enticed to watch commercials to unlock additional sticker packs.

Learning Rating

Overall Rating
Engagement

Intuitive, easy-to-use, visually appealing, and customizable, this is a sure favorite for anyone wanting to collate design elements into a small package. In-app sharing features make it easy to send to friends, classmates, and family.

Pedagogy

Touch-gesture interface makes collage design easy and rewarding. There's no option to add standard grid lines to aid layout, but the powerful, in-app editing tools bring professional quality to student work.

Support

A basic graphical overlay points out key features when the app is launched. The Support knowledge base has information on many topics. There's a dedicated Facebook page and numerous how-to videos online.

Common Sense reviewer
Kim A.
Kim A. Educational Technology Specialist

Community Rating

Instagram Adjectives

I love this for getting students to use adjectives to describe their the colleges they designed with the app.

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Privacy Rating

Data Safety How safe is this product?

  • Unclear whether this product supports interactions between trusted users.
  • Personal information can be displayed publicly.
  • User-created content is filtered for personal information before being made publicly visible.

Data Rights What rights do I have to the data?

  • Users can create or upload content.
  • Processes to access or review user data are available.
  • Processes to modify data are available for authorized users.

Ads & Tracking Are there advertisements or tracking?

  • Personal information is shared for third-party marketing.
  • Unclear whether this product displays traditional or contextual advertisements.
  • Personalised advertising is displayed.

Continue reading about this tool's privacy practices, including data collection, sharing, and security.

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