A couple of weeks ago the students in one of my US History classes had to give presentations to their classmates. Rather than letting students self-select the order of presentations I had them pull numbers out of a hat. I’ve use that method for years now and it works, but now I have a new way of randomly selecting names.

Last week John McLear introduced a Random Name Selector that he developed. The Random Name Selector is a simple tool for picking names from a list you’ve created. To use the selector just type in or copy a list of names then hit “go.” Once a name is selected you have the option of launching a two minute or seven minute countdown timer. You also have the option to remove a name from the list after it has been selected. Watch the video below to learn a little more and see the Random Name Selector in use.

Applications for Education
The next time you need to randomly select students for a classroom activity, try the Random Name Selector to make the process as arbitrary as possible.