In this paper we present SketchMap, a system that integrates face-to-face and distributed collaboration of primary school children. We use small-scale tablet PCs for the distributed field work and an additional normal PC with data projector for the face-to-face situation. Children use SketchMap for creating their ‘personal environment’ map of an area around their school - a task habitually tackled when being introduced for the first time to the basic concepts of cartography. While the SketchMap version described in this paper focuses on the mentioned task, the system itself can easily be extended or adapted to other related scenarios such as instruction on traffic behavior or on civil protection measures. First user experiences with SketchMap showed that there certainly remains work ahead, but that already now it supports users well in their distributed drawing and face-to-face collaborative ‘map merging’ tasks.