Classroom Wheel
A random student name picker for lessons, quizzes, and end-of-term prizes.
Quick start: replace the example names with your class list (one name per line), then spin on the projector so everyone can see the draw.
8 active entries · Click the center to spin
Press Space to spin · Enter to spin · Esc to close winner dialog
A guide for teachers
Why visual randomness beats calling names. When a teacher picks who answers next, students read meaning into it. The quiet child assumes they were targeted; the confident one assumes they are the favourite; somebody always thinks they get asked more often than everyone else. None of that is usually true, but perception is what shapes how safe a class feels. A wheel removes the question entirely. The names are visible, the slices are obviously equal, and the spin happens in front of thirty witnesses. Students stop arguing about who gets asked and start paying attention to the answer, because anyone could be next. The short moment of suspense also works in your favour: heads come up from desks when the wheel starts turning, which is a free attention reset in the middle of a lesson.
Using elimination mode through a lesson. Open Customize and switch on auto-remove, or click "Remove from wheel" when a winner appears. Each student who has answered drops off the wheel, so the class works through everyone exactly once before anyone repeats. This is ideal for reading aloud round-robin, mental maths drills, or a vocabulary check where you want full coverage rather than random sampling. The winner history panel lists everyone already picked, and one click restores a name if a student was absent or you want to bring them back for a second round.
Saving a class wheel and reopening it tomorrow. Your list, colours, and settings are saved in the browser automatically, so the same class list is waiting the next morning on the same computer. If you teach several groups, use the Save menu to export each class to a file, or sign in and save to the cloud, then reopen the right one at the start of the lesson. Sharing a wheel with a colleague or a cover teacher is a single link from the Share button.
Running it on a projector. Put the browser in full screen, increase the wheel size in Customize if the back row is squinting, and mute or lower the tick sound if it competes with your voice. A center image with the school crest, or the class name as a background image, makes it feel like part of your room rather than a random website. Once the page has loaded it keeps working even if the school Wi-Fi drops mid-lesson, which is the single most useful property of a classroom tool.
Frequently asked questions
Type or paste the names into the entries panel on the right, one per line. Copying a column straight out of a spreadsheet works — blank lines and extra spaces are cleaned up for you.
Yes. Turn on auto-remove in Customize, or click Remove from wheel when a name comes up. Each student drops off the wheel until everyone has had a turn, and the history panel shows who has already been picked.
Yes, on the same computer and browser it is saved automatically. For multiple classes or multiple devices, export each list from the Save menu or save it to the cloud after signing in.
No. Names stay in your browser's local storage. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is tracked unless you deliberately choose to save a wheel to the cloud.
Yes. Run the browser full screen and increase the wheel size in Customize. Tapping the centre of the wheel spins it, so it works with touch boards as well as a mouse.
Once the page has loaded, the wheel runs entirely in the browser. You can keep spinning through a Wi-Fi outage — just avoid refreshing the tab until the connection is back.