Gone are the days when we used text messages for nothing but casual chatting. Today, they are a powerful instrument for business communication, often more efficient than email, phone calls, and voicemails that can go unread or unheard.

Numbers speak volumes:

• Smartphone users in the US alone send 227 million text messages per hour.
• 75% of millennial users still prefer texting to talking.
• 98% of text messages read within the first two minutes after sending.

Isn’t it a great communication channel to reach an audience that doesn’t let smartphones out of their hands: students?

Text messaging can be a decisive educational channel to ensure learning and student organization. Alongside a letter writing service, it provides timely information flow. More than that, text messages promote a stronger connection between students, teachers, and parents.

In this article, we’ll explore the benefits, practical applications, and best practices of text messaging in education.

How to Enhance Learning Through Text Messaging

Student engagement with mobile phones and messaging platforms is marvelous: They spend hours scrolling newsfeeds, searching for brands and products, and communicating with their networks. Such vast flows of information shape the ways young people consume and process it:

Clip thinking and a short attention span make them crave short, fragmented, and easily digestible formats. Text messaging is such a format: accessible, relevant, and concise. Educators will keep students engaged in the learning process by providing information through text messages.

Text messaging is an excellent real-time communication method. Below are a few ways to use it in education:

1 — Reminders and notifications:

Educational institutions can send them to students and parents about assignments, exams, class projects, deadlines, school events, etc.

2 — Teacher-student interactions:

 Why not try text messages as a quick way for students to ask questions or clarify assignment requirements?

3 — Microlearning opportunities:

Educators can send students study tips, flashcards, or links to educational resources. Concise and up-to-point information is precisely what a young generation appreciates, and text messaging is the perfect tool to give that.

4 — Collaboration:

Teachers can use text messaging to send quizzes and polls to students to make the learning process more interactive. SMS can also be a tool to organize real-time discussions or Q&A sessions via text-based group chats.

5 — Creative learning practices:

Text messages are great for engaging students with the arts, storytelling, and other text-based activities. For example, students could re-enact literature classics, translating their complex language into modern text speak. And vice versa: Teachers ask students to translate SMS text into formal English, thus learning grammar and sentence structure. 

Or, a teacher could text the beginning of a story to the group, and each student would add a line, thus creating a collective storytelling.

How to Improve Organization Through Text Messaging

Text messaging is also an efficient tool to communicate with parents, manage events, send alerts, and ensure that the educational process is well-organized and controlled.

Here are a few ways to apply it:

• Event scheduling. Send text reminders about upcoming classes, extracurriculars, or academic milestones.
• Streamlining communications between students, educators, and peers.
• Teacher-parent messaging. It’s particularly relevant for elementary and middle school teachers. They can use SMS to inform parents of upcoming tests, daily homework assignments, school reports, meeting confirmations, etc.
• Emergency notifications. Send text messages to students in the case of unexpected happenings (school closure due to emergencies) to ensure they’ll receive and see them timely. Send text alerts to parents when their student is absent from school.
• Fundraising campaigns. A school administration can send messages to engage sponsors for new educational projects.
• Payment reminders. Educational institutions often collect money for extracurricular activities like school trips, and text messaging is an efficient tool to remind students or parents about due payments.
• Student event organization. School clubs can use text messaging to engage new members or boost participation. Sending promos and updates will help organize the event in the best way possible.
• Note-taking. Students can use SMS for note-taking to remember the information or organize their schedules.

How to Effectively Use Text Messaging in Education

Despite the numerous benefits of text messaging, there are also some challenges and considerations to address.

You must set clear rules for when and how to use this tool to manage the number of messages and remember student privacy concerns. When implementing text messaging in your educational process, remember about FERPA and TCPA:

1. FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy) is a regulation that protects students’ sensitive data. Any info, including text messages, must adhere to secure systems.
2. TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) requires explicit consent for text communications from anyone involved, including students and their parents.

For effective use of text messaging in education, teachers can involve students in creating rules and corresponding guidelines. Set clear boundaries together: timing, content types to share, etc. A good practice would be to automate the process whenever possible: Use a reliable mass texting service to schedule your messages or send them to all recipients in one click. It will save time and reduce educators’ workload.

But wait, there are more tips on writing text messages for students:

• Be thoughtful when crafting and sending your message. Remember that screenshot, share, or take out of context. Be mindful and keep each message formal, short, and up-to-point.
• Use positive language in text messages. Always.
• Use clear and concise language so recipients won’t misinterpret your message and its tone.
• Remember that not all students and parents have the same language skills. While mass text messaging is more comfortable and time-saving, personalization also matters. Use a language a student’s family understands.
• Double-check before sending. Ensure your discussion of a student doesn’t go to the wrong parent or a group.

Takeaways

Text messaging can be a great learning and organizational tool for educational institutions to communicate with students and their parents.

More accessible and efficient than email or phone calls (both are easier to miss), text messages are excellent for sending reminders and notifications, promoting school projects and extracurricular activities, and engaging students in learning.

Integrate text messaging into your educational system, and the positive results won’t take long.