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Make Your Lessons Memorable with the Texting Story App By: Sarah Burton


Make your lessons memorable with the free ipad app, Texting Story. This digital tool is a great way to get your students thinking, creating and writing while using technology in the classroom.

Are you constantly trying to jazz up your lessons and engage your students? I know I am always on the hunt for new, innovative ideas to bring to the classroom that will excite learners of all levels.

Several years ago Catherine Reed from Brown Bag Teacher wrote a blog post entitled Using Fake Texts to Connect with and Engage Students. As soon as I saw her ideas, I lit up! Today's students would be all over her activities. After all, I saw my students WANT TO LEARN when I used my Making Inferences with Text Messages Task Cards that are in the shape of an iPhone as well as my ConTEXT Clues worksheets. That's right, I DO have printable products in my TpT Store. 💁 I strongly believe that classrooms need to have a balance of digital activities as well as paper/utensil activities.

  

ANYWAY...Catherine mentions how teachers can use the iFake Text Generator for:
  • Morning Meeting Messages
  • Reading Journals
  • Introduce/Review Vocabulary
So fun!

After seeing Catherine's post, I did a lesson with a 2nd grade class who used the iFakeText Generator to write a conversation between George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as if they were alive today. They LOVED it. It required A LOT of thinking for those 2nd graders to weave in as much information as possible but it ended up being a wonderful activity.

Texting exchange between George Washington and Abraham Lincoln using the digital tool, iFake Text Generator
iFakeText Generator Example

THEN..last week..I saw a Facebook post from TechChef4u that was advertising the FREE app, Texting Story. Once again, I lit up!

Not only does this app generate text messages, it turns your work into a text conversation MOVIE. Check it out:
 

If you are interested in creating a conversation that plays continuously so you don't have to keep pressing play, upload the saved video into the app GifToaster and turn it into a GIF that you can embed in a Google Doc/Slide, blog or website! Here is an example (the only issue is that you don't get to hear the cool texting sounds when it is turned into a gif)


Make your lessons memorable with the free ipad app, Texting Story. This digital tool is a great way to get your students thinking, creating and writing while using technology in the classroom.

This app is so easy to use and very intuitive. You can even upload pictures for each character as well as send images and emojis🙌 in the texts.

Under Settings you can add your two names, select their text color, add a profile image as well as choose some other options:

Make your lessons memorable with the free ipad app, Texting Story. This digital tool is a great way to get your students thinking, creating and writing while using technology in the classroom.

Note: It documents your every move. If you type a word/phrase and then delete to add something different, it will show up. The Clear Story button under Edit Story needs to be pressed if you want to start all over.

Students would have a ball using this tool in the classroom and it would truly make your lessons memorable. What are some other ways we could use this with students?

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