Do you know what M&M's stands for? Or the name of the first female to run for U.S. President? How about how many people in the U.S. are injured each year by a toilet?! People love trivia!
Aside from being addictive and a conversation starter, trivia is a quick and easy way to engage viewers of your digital signage. If you’ve ever arrived at a movie theater twenty minutes before the movie starts, you’ve probably found yourself passing the time by guessing the answers to the trivia that appears on the screen.
One very quick way to create trivia of your very own for your display is to incorporate Google Slides into your presentation. It can be done in less than five minutes, and we’ll show you how in this post. (And don’t worry! We won’t leave you hanging--the answers to those trivia questions are at the end of this post).
If you've already got a digital trivia game of your own on your display, (or if you use this post to create your own), we’d love to hear how it worked out. Drop us a line here.
Create Your First Trivia Presentation
Google Slides is a free, cloud-based, presentation builder that’s part of the Google Drive family. It’s the Google equivalent of PowerPoint or Keynote. It’s free to use and there’s nothing to install.
To get started, go to your Google Drive and select the new button, then select Google Slides. You can also go directly to Google Slides here.
You can either create a blank presentation or use one of over a dozen pre-built templates. You can also create your own template, so if you decide to add more trivia later, you can just insert new questions. For this presentation, we’ll use the template called “Flashcards.”
Now add your questions and answers to the slides. One question or answer per slide.
When you finish adding content to your slides, you’ll need to publish it. Go to “File” in the top menu, then click the “Embed” tab in the pop-up. Next select your slideshow options (size, length between slides, when the slideshow starts, etc).
Finally, hit publish, copy the link, then the blue “Ok” button, and lastly, close your box. You are now ready to put the Slides into your presentation.
To embed the slides into your presentation, login to your Rise Vision account, then open the presentation and click the green “Add Placeholder” button.
Next click the “More” option and select “Web Page Widget”. In the box that just came up, add the embed link that you have just copied (Note: the link you have copied has content before and after the actual link, so make sure you are only pasting in the link--it starts with https:// and ends right before the “); finally, scroll to the bottom of the box, click the blue “Save” button, and hit the green “Save and Publish” button to preview the presentation.
Once you see the Google Slideshow correctly displaying, return to your presentation and adjust the size to whatever you desire.
Anytime you edit your Google Slides, there is nothing to update in your Rise Vision account. As long as the Google Slides remain published, the slides will continue to display on your digital signage.
What Trivia to Include
There are thousands of websites that will give you trivia ideas. Remember, however, to check the answers to make sure they are correct--just because it’s on the web, doesn’t mean it’s true! Also, don’t forget to cater the trivia to your users; asking them to name one of the two main actors in the 60s TV series, "The Avengers" will most likely leave them stumped.
Making it personal is another way to make it more engaging for students; for example, you could put up a question like “What student just received a scholarship to UCLA?”
Trivia Games Not for You?
Trivia games aren’t for everyone. Here are some other things you can do with digital signage:
- How to Stream Live Events to Your Digital Signage
- 50+ Ways Schools Can Use Digital Signage
- Digital Signage On The Raspberry Pi
- 20+ Google Slide Features You Might Not Use...But Should
If you put a live stream into your presentation, we’d love to hear how it worked out! Drop us an email!
Trivia Answers
- M&M's stands for Mars & Murrie's--the last names of the company's founders.
- Victoria Woodhull became the first woman to run for U.S. President in 1872.
- A 2015 report claimed that 40,000 people were injured by way of toilet.
