The Flat Stanley Project is "The international literacy and community building activity for students of all ages, teachers and families." It started as an exercise of writing a letter and sending a "Flat Stanley" cutout to a friend or family member, sometimes asking them to send it to someone else with a letter and so on. There can be a notice that says  "after this date please send back to" the student. There are many opportunities to teach writing with a purpose when engaging in a pen pal type activity, but recently teachers have begun to introduce new ways of conducting a Flat Stanley project. I have seen it done with email, on blogs, and even on a shared custom Google map.

I'm not sure how old the app is, but I think they must have just done a big update because I saw several people tweeting about it. There are a bunch of fun features for creating Flat Stanleys (and Stellas), taking pictures with a Stanley overlay, and sharing the pictures and text on a variety of social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter.  The app is a great example of taking something that was grounded in solid learning intentions and then integrating technology to enhance and expand the possibilities of that learning experience.