I discovered this great website, ifaketext which generates roughly six lines of fake text messages.

Ice-breaker

I used it as an ice-breaker for revising cumulative frequency. The class read the texts and discussed what they could remember and whether those pointers were helpful. There were four screens of hints.

In fact the class liked it so much I printed out the fake screens and they stuck them in their books.

Motivation
I’m also using the site to encourage more engagement with homework for lower ability students.

I could have set the homework task ‘Write down key facts that help you work out percentages’. Instead I asked them to ‘Imagine a friend had texted for help with a percentages homework. What would you text back?’

When they hand their work in, we can turn the best advice into fake texts to stick in their books or use in a wall display.

Two of those who have homework ‘issues’ have already said they are going to text each other tonight to do their work. This resulted in the following unusual question:
‘Please Miss, can we hand in our work by showing you our phones?!’