Hello everyone. I am starting this discussion thread to uncover more of the really cool features many of you have added to your websites. Of course, I am looking to shamelessly borrow/steal your ideas for my own site, lol.

Allow me to go first with what I think is a really cool feature I created on my site...

I created a trivia quiz on my site -- I know many people have added trivia quizzes to their sites, but my idea comes with a twist. The twist is that the answer to every question can be found on your website. This approach has the following benefits:
-- By developing the right questions, you can encourage your users to explore your entire site. For example, "Which of our classmates played in a pickup basketball game with Michael Jordan?" (this encourages classmates to browse through the Classmate Profiles in order to find the answer).
-- It 'levels the playing field' so that anyone can answer all the questions correctly without having any special knowledge.

To create a trivia quiz, simply use the survey tool (i.e., click on "Survey Maker") and add your trivia questions in place of an actual survey.

The trivia quiz on my site is password-protected, but here is the intro:

**********
Welcome to the first in a series of trivia quizzes about our class. The cool thing about this quiz is the answer to every question can be found right here on our site!

OK, we know you are wondering… is there a prize for answering every question correctly? Well, sort of – anyone who answers every question correctly will have their name posted on this page and their ‘prize’ will be bragging rights about their accomplishment!

Remember, you don’t need any special knowledge to participate. All you need is a little time to explore our site and some of that competitive high school spirit.

Here are the details along with a few suggestions:

1. Keep in mind that in order to find many of the answers, you must be logged in.
2. You can submit your answers for this trivia quiz only once and you cannot change your answers once they are submitted.
3. You might want to print out the questions first, figure out all the answers, and then come back to this page to enter/submit your answers.
4. Each question has a "hint" below it -- giving you a hint about where to find the answer on the site.
5. To make things really interesting, you might want to 'challenge' a fellow classmate to a little competition... you both start the quiz at the same time and see who can answer all the questions correctly in the fastest time!
6. The answers to Trivia Quiz #1 will be posted on the site in a few weeks. Everyone who submits answers will be notified when the correct answers are posted.

Good Luck!
**********

So that's it. If you like this idea, you are welcome to borrow/steal it for your class website.

Having made this small contribution, I'm hoping others will reply to this post with the coolest feature you've seen on the various Class Creator sites... to help inspire me and others to make their sites even better. Thanks!

Hi Tom,

I like it. The more content a site has... the more trivia contests you can run. (Richard Williams, I'm thinking of your site!)

I'm just coming back to life after a few days not feeling well. When my brain recharges, I'll be back!

Tom - I did someting similar only used a "Classmate Crossword" puzzle. Using last names A-D, hints were given using info that was on each classmate's profile, i.e, "lives in Memphis, TN" or "has two sets of twins," etc. I was hoping to get others to read through profiles and become aquainted with other classmates. I'm not sure if people are visiting that page and actually working the puzzle or not - if I knew they were, I'd spend more time devising a puzzle for letters E-K and so on. It is definitely time consuming!

Now that is the best idea I have seen that I 'THINK' would work on our site.

Another 'twist' on the trivia would be, ask each classmate to email the admin. some trivia about themselves, and then you could post those trivia items on a 'fill in the answer' survey.
As far as a prize - how about the person with the most correct guesses gets their next reunion paid for?
Gonna be thinking on this one all weekend!

Rhonda, the Classmate Crossword puzzle is an absolutely awesome idea -- and exactly the kind of idea I was looking for. I haven't yet checked the tool you used (www.eclipsecrossword.com), but I'll keep my fingers crossed that I'll be able to figure it out. Thanks for sharing!

Great idea. I will attempted to copy that idea. I'm having a hard time getting the classmates to respond to Messages or Members forum. Only a few contribute and the same ones.
I'll give this a try.
Thank you.
Arlene

Tom,
Join us on TAP, a site for all of us to communicate in real time. We have chats every week.

www.classcreator.com/chat (should be www.theadminsplace.com - I have to get that fixed!)

I have a word search puzzle you could use like a crossword puzzle. It is under 3rd party games on the site.

I was adding Tom's trivia idea to my two sites' To Do list, until I realized... My classmates/alumni do not answer one or two question surveys. Am I fooling myself thinking they will do a trivia search?

I had a similar quiz that required classmates to check profiles to find the answers. I didn't get very good responses.

I had another quiz that got lots of responses. I scanned individual pictures from our 40th and put them one at a time into a "Guess Who" quiz (survey). I used multiple names for answers -- sometimes having the real name there and sometimes not, just a comment line to fill in the name. The idea was to get an idea of what we look like now not 50 years ago, so we could somewhat recognize who we are at our 50th reunion. I ran a new picture about every 5 days and sent out an email when a new one was posted and at the same time I posted the previous picture in a photo gallery with the correct name listed.

Jim

Jim Persing wrote:

Good idea, Jim. I may try that when I get some help. LOL

Jim Persing wrote:

Good idea, Jim. I may try that when I get some help. LOL