Class 21: PowerPoint Game (4)

By now you should have a story idea and you should have selected the standards you'll be addressing with your game. Make sure that you are not creating a game that will review multiple standards. Your game should be designed to introduce content or to provide practice for student understanding. If your game is designed around basic factual recall -- think of another game!



Part I: Action Button


Today we are going to talk about making action buttons and question slides. Action buttons are easier than they seem. Being slow and methodical makes it easier to create action buttons that direct the user to the correct feedback.

Here are some links that will review what we learned in class today:

Creating question slides
Creating the headquarters to access your question slides


Part II: Game Board

There are two ways to make the game board. One is to use your hand, the other is to use computer to draw a game board. If you choose to use your hand, you will need to scan your game board. The instruction will give it to you on Wednesday. If you want to draw the game board with computer, you can draw it in PowerPoint (one letter size) or your can draw it in Fireworks (as large as you want). This is your option to learn to use Firework to draw the board.

There are two parts of your game that ensure students will want to use it for learning: the story and the level of questions. You want to make sure that you have an engaging story - and you also want to make sure that your game is the right level of challenge. Factual level questions are too easy (and boring) regardless of the grade level you are targeting. We'll spend time in class on Wednesday working on your game design and learning how to write good questions.

For Wednesday's class:
1. Continue customizing the game template
2. Write your game directions
3. Finish the basic slides: objectives, game pieces, copyright notice, credits, etc.
4. Write 3 questions to use in your game (on scratch paper) and bring to class.