Wheel of Names – a simple, favourite tool in 2020

One of my most used online tools over both remote learning and face to face learning this year was the Wheel of Names This might seem strange but the students really engaged with it and I shall explain further on.

It is free, but advertisements do appear but we just ignored them. It starts with a blank wheel. As I had previously saved my class lists for each level, I copied and pasted the list into the “Enter names here”.

If any students were absent for that class, they were deleted. The wheel was clicked, spun around and a winning name would appear together with cheers and party balloons. The named student then had to answer the question or provide spoken input on a topic. Even the shyest of students would interact and it made sure that students were actively partcipating in remote learning and had not muted their webcamera and microphone and not being distracted with other activities or disappeared.

I liked this particular tool as it was so easy to use, simple to add the names of students, would remove the name of the student when they had been selected, remember the names of students who had not interacted from one class to another. It had bells and whistles ie cheers, balloons, the students really had fun using it and it helped me ensure that all were active in the remote learning class. Its big disadvantage was the appearance of advertisements. It has a translate option. An alternative option is the Random Name Picker – which is a bit slower to use and not as visually engaging.

What tools have used most in remote learning?