PTP: Powerpoint Games

Creating a Powerpoint game was a great experience for me. Before this class, I didn't realize that you could create a game in that program. I remember playing "jeopardy-style" games in some of my junior high and high school classes growing up, but I don't think I ever made the connection with Powerpoint. It was nice for me to learn how Powerpoint can be used in contexts other than just presentations. One of the things I've learned this semester is that I don't need to be a technology/media whiz in order to use technology effectively in the classroom. I don't need to know and use every technology option out there, but I should find a handful and learn them thoroughly enough that I benefit from all the resources those programs have to offer.

In the case of Powerpoint, I understood the program from a slides/presentation standpoint, but I did not know what else I could do with the program. Now that I know I can make games in Powerpoint, it makes me curious to see if there is another way I can use the program. I want to experiment with this program more in the future to see if I can find new ways to incorporate it into my classroom.

I don't feel like I ran into a lot of problems as I created my Powerpoint game because it is a program that I already have some familiarity with. I created my game much like I would a presentation. Only the hyperlinking to other slides made this project different from creating a slide show, but it was easy to do. The process was not difficult, it just took time to get all the information for the game and then put it into the program.

I would probably use powerpoint games as a way to review for a test or a quiz. I could use the relatively simple questions to spark conversation and then go into greater discussion from there. Hopefully, the ideas we discuss as we go through the questions will help students gain greater insight that they can use on essays.