Web Tool Wednesday: iFakeText
Do you ever look around and wonder how many texts are sent in a day’s time? According to a CNN article, OMG, the Text Message Turns 20. But Has SMS Peaked?, written by Heather Kelly, “six billion [text messages] are sent every day,” and that is just in the United States. Obviously, our students are included in that number, and as a teacher, some days you feel you are fighting for the attention of the students because the cell phone holds their attention.
How can we bring the texting world into education in a good way? Check out the website- iFakeText.
On this website, it gives you a cell phone template. In the template, you can change the contact name, date, carrier, and most importantly, the conversation between two people.
After you type in your text, you click the “Submit” button. It will create your texting story into a texting image like below-
It looks like a real texting conversation. You can download the image or you can share the link to the image.
How can this be used in the classroom?
*After reading a story, two characters can text between each other what has happened or maybe a conversation that would take place in the future.
*After learning a lesson in history, have students create a texting conversation between two key figures in the event.
*After learning a math concept, have students have a texting conversation with a friend that was “absent from class” about how to solve the problem using writing skills and math vocabulary.
*After learning a science concept like photosynthesis, have a texting conversation explaining the concept.
What other ways can you use it?
Stay tuned because, after spring break, I will go into another favorite texting tool of mine- TextingStory (it creates a video of the texting conversation).
As a World Languages teacher, I used it to support communication in the target language. It was hugely engaging, easy to use, real-world and easy to measure comprehension and knowledge. Great and easy tool! Loved it! In a ELA classroom, carrying on conversations between characters allowed one of my MS ELA teachers to allow students to demonstrate their grasp of plot, character, etc. in a very quick, easily-capturable way.
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