Any random picker can call on a student. The question is which routines are worth the setup. Here are six that teachers come back to, with what you need for each.
1. Cold-call questions during a lesson
The default use. Paste your class list, spin, the picked student answers the next question. Removes the "pick me, pick me" problem and spreads participation. Click "Remove winner" to avoid picking the same student twice in one lesson.
Setup: paste names once, save the wheel. Reuse every lesson. On a smartboard the full-screen mode makes the pick visible to the whole room.
2. Exit ticket pick
At the end of class, spin to pick three students. Those three verbally explain what they learned today before packing up. Everyone else benefits from hearing the recap in three different versions.
Why it works: every student knows they might be picked, so attention stays high through the last five minutes.
3. Fair group formation
Need to split 24 students into 6 project groups? Use the team picker instead of the wheel. Paste the list, pick 6 teams, hit split. Teams are balanced in size and random in membership. Rename teams on the fly (Red Team, Dragons, whatever). Reshuffle if the first result produces an obvious imbalance of talent.
Why it works: removes the "nobody picks me" dynamic of self-selected groups and the "same clique again" dynamic of friend groups.
4. Question-order shuffle for presentations
Each student has a presentation ready. Paste names into the wheel, spin to pick the first, remove them, spin for the second. Nobody knows when their turn is coming until it does. Keeps everyone rehearsing and keeps the attention level up through the whole set.
Variant: use the dice roller to assign who goes first with a quick 1d20 roll — highest wins. More ceremonial for a big performance day.
5. Random prompt generators
Creative writing warm-up: a wheel of 20 story starters. Debate class: a wheel of 15 debate topics. Spanish class: a wheel of 30 verbs to conjugate. The letter picker gives alphabet-based prompts ("name a country that starts with…"), the number picker gives dice-game style challenges.
Save your wheels. A good prompt wheel takes 10 minutes to build and lasts the whole semester. Click save, name it, reload any time.
6. Classroom probability experiments
This is where the counters come in. Have the class predict: "if we flip a coin 100 times, how many heads?" Then open the coin flipper, flip 100 times (one by one or in batches of 10), and watch the percentage settle. Same lesson works with the dice roller — roll a d6 60 times, each face should land about 10 times, and the tally bars show it.
The visual tallies make an abstract concept (expected value) tangible. Students see the law of large numbers happen in front of them.
Three practical tips
- Full-screen mode. On a projector or smartboard the full-screen wheel is visible from the back row. Click the arrows icon under the wheel.
- Mute sound in a quiet class. The tick sound while the wheel spins is fun on a stream, distracting during silent reading. Click the speaker icon.
- Save your class list once. Save-and-load from localStorage keeps your roster between sessions. You can also copy the share link so you have a backup if you switch devices.
What to try first
If you have never used a random picker in class, start with the cold-call wheel. It is the easiest to set up (paste names once) and the biggest instant improvement to participation. Then try the team splitter the next time you form groups and the coin flipper the next time you teach probability.