Sunday, May 4, 2008

Flash Jeopardy Game...

If you use an LCD Projector in the classroom, or better yet a SmartBoard, I have just finished work on a review game that makes setting up and using Jeopardy reviews simple and fun. I have used the blank Jeopardy Powerpoint template in the past and always found it to be a bit dull. I have felt for the past couple years that there had to be a better way to do this in Flash and make it more customizable and easy to create new games to use, rather than changing 50-60 slides in the Powerpoint version. I finally sat down this past week and was able to make a fully customizable Flash Jeopardy game. What you are seeing is a realization of one man's dream to change the "Jeopardy Review Game" game.

The Jeopardy Review game has 2 parts. The first part is a Flash form (shown to the right with the gray background) that allows you to create 5 categories of questions. Each category can have up to 5 questions each. The nice thing about it is that you do not need to fill in every field, the ones you leave blank will not be programmed into the actual review game.

Once you enter all of the questions, you click "Create Game" and the web page will create a simple text file that can be saved into a folder on your computer. This text file contains the variables that will tell the Flash Jeopardy file your category names, questions, and answers. You can create multiple text files for multiple reviews. They can all be saved into the same folder with separate filenames.

After you have created a game file, you can run the Flash Jeopardy file. The file will ask you to type the name of the game text file (for example: worldwarone) so it can load your game info into the Jeopardy game. From there you are ready to play!

The game itself is pretty self-explanatory. All of your questions are loaded into the template. When a user clicks on a square, they are taken to the page for that question. The game also automatically keeps track of the score for up to 5 teams.

If you want to try this for yourself with your own questions, a more complete set of instructions can be found here. This page will guide you through the easy steps of creating and playing a new game.

If you want to try this online, click this link. Enter the word "sample" as the filename when the page asks.

I created this program in the hopes that others would find it to be a quick and easy way to create review games with no programming knowledge required. If you use this and you have feedback or suggestions for improvement, please leave comments. I welcome any constructive criticism.

P.S. If you create games that others might like to use, please send me the text files for them. Maybe I can create a game library of all different subjects.

**UPDATE**
I have created a Mac version of the jeopardy game. It works exactly the same as the PC version. You can still use the game file creation tool using the link above. Let me know how it works out for the Mac users!








18 comments:

  1. Your technical knowledge never ceases to impress me! I stopped by to say, “TAG!”. I’m tagging you for a meme…you can find the details right here…. http://kpasa.blogono.com/2008/05/04/a-meme-for-me-and-for-you/

    Have fun!

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  2. Thanks!
    Here's some PR for ya:
    http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/california/2008/05/06/its-jeopardy-but-without-the-pretentious-host/
    Dave Kootman- a fellow NJ teacher transplanted to CA

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  3. lets try that link again:
    http://tinyurl.com/5lmq24

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  4. This looks very cool! Any chance you will create a Mac version? I would love to use it!

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  5. Yes! I am hoping to post a Mac friendly version in the next day or so. Look for an update soon...

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  6. That's freakin cool man

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  7. Love the fact you can use fewer categories and questions and love the team scoring feature. What if you want to edit questions after you've created a game? Do you just edit the .txt file?

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  8. Thanks for the feedback!
    Yes, you can simply change the text file if you need to tweak a question or change something small like spelling or point values.

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  9. What a great classroom review tool. Thank you for sharing with us.

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  10. Very nice. I used to use powerpoint jeopardy games in my class until I stumbled on these guys:
    http://www.c3softworks.com/products/

    If you can get the funding for it, it's a great tool. The students really like the flashy graphics.

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  11. is it possible to add a sixth category?

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  12. Awesome!!! Man I just watch jeopardy on tv before, now I can play the game as well! I am soo excited!!

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  13. http://freeeglence.freevar.com/aqua.html
    To improve your mental game, question resolution!
    zeka gelistirmek için oyun oynayin, soru cözün!

    ReplyDelete
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  15. I appreciate your post, thanks for sharing the post, i would like to hear more about this in future

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hi there!
    Thanks for your great work. Any chances to share the source code (.fla) of the millionaire game?

    ReplyDelete

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