Gamifying your Classroom with Google Slides: Multiple Choice Game

Google Slides: Multiple Choice Game

    Since the pandemic situation started, the need to create interactive lessons for the students has grown immensely. In a lapse from night time to daylight, we as instructors had to change our ways of teaching, such as teaching approaches and classroom settings. Today I will show you a step-by-step process to make an easy interactive multiple-choice game with your students. I will focus on Parts of the body topic. Yet, it will be helpful for any other topic you want to apply it with. 

Step 1: Create a New Slides Presentation

Create a new Slides presentation. The first thing you are going to do is to change the layout of your slides. Click on "Layout" and select the "Blank" slide option. 

*Using a blank slide will help you see an empty canvas and have nothing to distract you or disturb you during your creation. 

Step 2: Using the Explore Section to Add Images from the Web, Directly to your Slides

    When working in Slides, have you ever wondered what that star-looking icon at the bottom of the screen is for? Let me introduce you to the Explore section in Slides. This is like an embedded google search in your slides. I personally use it more for inserting images,  but you can use it when using information from the internet as a reference and have it as an added window to your slides. For this activity, we will use it to insert images. Let's begin by searching for a "child's clipart" so we can start our game. 

Click on the "Explore" icon and type what you are looking for, click images, and select the one of your preference. Then, you can double-click the picture, or you can click the "+" icon at the top right corner of the image you want. 

Step 3: Creativity Time! The sky is the limit.

Depending on your teaching style and the needs of your students, you can personalize your game in whatever color or shape you want. The upcoming steps will show you some of the things I have figured that are helpful for my students. Many people would think they are unnecessary or nonsense. The best thing is that you can adapt it to whatever you prefer.  But this is how you make one type of multiple-choice game. 

-Add a text box by clicking on the following icon, or you can also you to Insert-> Text Box. Write your multiple-choice question.

-Click on the Shapes icon or go to Insert-> Shapes. Choose the shape of your preference. Here you will write the multiple answers and choose the correct one. You can use circles, triangles. In this case, I will use round-edged rectangles. 

Feel free to use the Border and Fill options to customize the shape with the colors you want. 

Once you have your desired shape, Copy & Paste the customized shape as many times as the number of choices you want the learner to chose from to answer the question. Finally, double-click each shape to add text to the shapes. 

When you are done writing all the right and wrong choices. Let's edit the clipart, where we will point to the parts of the body we want students to identify. Click on the Shapes icon again, and select Arrows. You can also click on insert->Shapes-> Arrows. Select the one of your preference. Use the same procedure we used to customize the shapes, to customize your arrow. 

As you are creating your slides. You will see what you want to add or take away. So fr, I would like a frame or border on my slide to show some focus and stabilize my slides, as I feel that everything is floating. (This step is what some people will think is unnecessary and extra work, but up to you!) Easy steps to add a border to your slide. 

Click on the Shapes shortcut and add the frame. Customize it as you wish. 

OK! We have our question or statement and multiple-choice ready! Let's do our right and wrong answer alert. I am a fan of bitmoji, and since I was told they could be used in your classroom, they are constantly popping out in my lessons and stickers. In the past blog post, I gave you the steps to create your bitmoji, add it as an extension to Chrome, and create a bitmoji classroom. **Write in the comments if you could not find it, and I can help you out. 

I will be using my bitmoji for the following steps, but you can use the Explore section or Google Search. 

I used my Bitmoji extension and typed "oops"  and "You did it!" Then, I dragged the one I liked into my slides and made my "correct" and "try again" options. Finally, insert a text box and personalize your slide as you wish. 

 

Now, we need to add a shape that will take the learner back to the question to try again and choose the correct and answer or move to the next question if he got it right. 

We will use the same steps we used for creating the multiple-choice options.

ATTENTION! Using Hyperlinks

Our most important step is about to come up. This is the key to make your slides an interactive game. Hyperlinking within slides within our slides is the key. We will hyperlink every correct answer to the right answer slide we made and the wrong answers to the try it again slides. 

Let's do it with the back to question option in the try again slide. Select the shape or text where you want your learners to click to go back to the question.  Click the hyperlink shortcut or go to Insert-> Link. (Each slide has a number) Type "SLIDE and the number of the slide where the question is." FOr example, if my slide with the question is Slide 9, I will type as a hyperlink my "back to question" text or shape to "Slide 9". 

You will follow the same steps with the correct and wrong answers to the question. 

Work Smarter, NOT Harder

Once you have everything ready and linked. You can go ahead and select the three slides. You will right-click over the slides, and a set of options will pop up. Click on Duplicate. The three drops will duplicate, and you do not have to do everything again for your following questions. Repeat the process as many times as the number of questions you have planned. 

Edit your questions and answers. Then, edit the hyperlinks to the desired slide. 

Click on Present every now and then to check how your interactive game is going so far. But definitely check it when you are done.

I am the type of teacher that I add the title at the end during my lessons and when creating my slides. I also recommend adding the directions to the game at the end because whenever you are doing it, you might want to change your mind about how the game will run. 

Title: Click on Slide->New Slide. Select the new slide and hold it and drag it to the top. To make it your slide 1. This will be your title. You can choose them for your slides, or you can just create your out. Themes already have pre-made layouts of slide formats you might want to use. Note: The theme you choose will change the color format you have selected for already made slides.  I am adding a screenshot of how to insert a theme.

 Or you can create your own like I did. 

  Last Step: 

Once everything is ready, and you have checked that all hyperlinks are working well. You are ready to use your game. When you lead the class you can easily use Present mode and get your class started. You can add more slides if you would like to introduce or review the topic and leave the multiple-choice game at the end. When distance learning and you want to assign this to your students, I recommend the "Publish to the Web" option. This will not allow students to enter the game as in google slides but as a webpage or game option. You can have your students record their screens when they are doing the game to keep track of their work. Publish to the web disables the possibility of giving an editor access to the person you are sharing it with. The slides will be available as follows with the Publish to Web option. 

This is how you do it! Click on File -> Publish to Web

A window will pop up. Click on "Publish" the click OK. Now, a link will be generated to share with your learners or embed it on your web page or blog. 

You did it!

Let us know if you did it or if you have any suggestions in our comment section. Also, new Google Slides tutorials will come up soon. 

Thanks for following!