Creating Games with Powerpoint

Most teachers and presenters use the PowerPoint or Impress just to present information and images. However, you can use these programs to to engage your class by using them to create a competitive game, like Jeopardy.

You can do this by using that little used feature in PowerPoint and Impress called "hyperlinks."

(Obviously, it is nothing new. I am just emphasizing that that feature has been there since... I don't know... Microsoft Office '97?) 

Hyperlinks, or links for short, are immediately visible words or images that can be clicked to take you to another part of the file, or maybe open a document, or go to an Internet website. An example of a link is this.

General Flow

Here are the major steps in creating a Jeopardy-like game with PowerPoint:

1. Create the main page where the collection of links will be placed. I recommend that you use Text Boxes so that the whole box. You can also use a table, but you need to click the word, which can be difficult during presentation. 
2. Create the pages where the links will go to when clicked. In the first such page, make sure there are two bullets: a) First is question; b) Second is the answer. Make sure to configure that when the slide opens, you have to click for each bullet so that the answer will not appear at the same time as the question. 
3. Make sure to create a link that will return the page to the main page. Just duplicate this page and change the items inside.
4. Go back to the main page and insert a hyperlink per item and link it to the corresponding slide.
5. Try using the file once you finish it and adjust the settings based on your personal flow. 
6. During presentation, you can click the box, and it should go to that slide. After the participant answers (make sure to record the score), click the link to return the PowerPoint to the main page.

You might be thinking how do you know if the box has been used already. The presentation software will change the color of the link that has already been used, just like the color of a hyperlink in a browser will change if you already went to that page.

How to Insert a Hyperlink in Microsoft PowerPoint

To insert a hyperlink in PowerPoint (starting in version 2010), select a word or an image that you want to create a link first, then select Insert. You will find there Hyperlink.

Select "Place in this Document," then select the slide where you want to go to when you click this link during presentation.

How to Insert a Hyperlink in LibreOffice Impress

To insert a hyperlink in LibreOffice Impress, select a word or an image that you want to create a link first, then select Insert and select Hyperlink. Otherwise, you can click the hyperlink icon, like below:

Select "Place in this Document," then select the slide where you want to go to when you click this link during presentation.

However, to make things easy for you, you can download a ready made template here, The file is downloaded from the Kapi'olani Community College website.