This post was originally published October 30, 2015. It was updated with new information on March 22, 2019 and April 30, 2021.
My colleague Miguel Guhlin and I were working on the ISTE Certified Educator training and we needed a random selector tool. Of course, Miguel pipes up and had just the right wheel spinner. This joint effort spawned a blog and the hunt for even more spinners.
Scroll down the page and enter your choices (The max is 100.).
Title your wheel.
Click (Apply Wheel Changes).
That’s it. You have your wheel.
If you want to save the wheel, copy the URL and save it.
Red flag: If you scroll down to the very bottom of Wheel Decide, there are some pre-made wheels that are adult themed: What Wine to Drink?, Tarot Cards, and What Domestic Beer to Drink (US)?
Random Name Picker Spinner
Created by: Classroom Tools
Multiple colors with a spinner click sound and applause
Enter your information to the right of the spinner.
Enter in the yellow “Input here” one-by-one.
Or click on the peach-colored button to add a whole list.
Click on the spinner’s middle button.
Extra! Works in three modes: normal mode, elimination mode, and accumulation mode.
It is a PWA application which means you can work offline and can be installed as a desktop, iOS or Android app without surfing through a browser.
Wheel Generator
Created by: WheelGenerator.com
Five muted toned wheel spinner with spinner clicking sounds. The winner is announced in a text box with whistles, whoops, and clapping.
The Steps:
1. Visit https://wheelgenerator.com/ 2. Enter random names, numbers, or symbols to the field next to the spinner. 3. Click the blue spin button to activate.
Extra! You can remove and add information immediately from the Entries Box. Includes an easy share button: Facebook, email, Gmail, Twitter, LinkedIn, Messenger and so many more.
I certainly hope one of these seven fancy wheels will spin you right. If you happen to have another wheel spinner that would be an awesome addition, please email me at preimers@tcea.org. Happy spinning!
Updated on November 22, 2019. This blog originally only had five spinners, but thanks to Tyson Lim we now have SIX SPINNERS!
Updated on April 30, 2021. How exciting! Another developer has reached out to me with another option – bringing the count of free wheel spinners to SEVEN!
Who doesn’t love wheel spinners? Peggy and I celebrated online wheel spinners in a previous blog entry. Now, I find myself wondering, what about pictures instead of words? In this blog entry, you’ll learn about an amazing alternative to word wheel spinners known as shape spinners: online wheel spinners that spin shapes and pictures and not words alone.
Not Words Alone
Expressing ideas and information in pictures has long been a fun, and necessary, way of communicating. While character for character, the written word conveys information, nothing works so well as pictures and words together. Imagery evokes sound, taste, smell, and touch. This is because images “evoke and enrich complex meanings that are otherwise linguistically inexpressible.” To be more direct, images send multi-layered messages that you can’t say in words. Imagery is a key surface learning strategy (source).
How does this work with online wheel spinners? When you see a picture, you get much more than one level of meaning. You get the feelings, the tastes, and the smells that go with it. As you review these wheel spinners, let me know the message they express.
Note: All wheel spinners shown are free. Some are ad-sponsored.
Classroom Uses of Shape Spinners
As you can imagine, there are many possible uses of shape spinners in the classroom. A quick brainstorm gave me this list:
Identify [whatever you want]. In this, you could put pictures of countries for students to identify.
Poetry prompts. Have your students write about an animal that pops up in a shape spinner.
Graph the shape a spinner lands on a graph, continuing until one shape reaches the top of the graph (source).
Spin, read, and trace. Students spin to see what shape is chosen and then match the shape to various attributes, such as one of these: — I have 0 sides. — I have 6 sides. — I have 6 vertices. — I have 2 long slides. — I have 3 sides. — I have 4 equal sides (source).
There are many exciting ways to adapt spinners for the classroom. Let your imagination and student needs be your guide. Now, let’s take a quick look at some dedicated shape spinners.
WordWall hosts a variety of shape spinners. Most require a free account, so you can use a Google authenticated account to get started. Although there are many options, the one that jumps out to me is this one.
As you will see, there are more options you can take advantage of:
One of my favorites is the power spin, which gives a little more oomph to the wheel spin. Customizing the shape spinner is not difficult. Simply click on the picture you want to change and remove the words you don’t want. Then, click where the image is supposed to go (as shown below) and upload your own.
With a few modifications, you will get something that looks like this:
This shape spinner comes with embed code. That means you can put it on any web page (or OneNote page) that you want to. A cool feature includes templates, like this television game show, that you can apply to your shape spinner:
You can adapt these word spinners to be shape spinners by loading this shape spinner into PowerPoint or Google Slides. What’s more, Tekhnologic’s PowerPoint spinner works perfectly in LibreOffice, a free Office suite. This flexibility makes this Teknologic creation amazing! Adapt it for your own use.
You may remember that wheel of names enjoys easy options for customization. What you may not have realized is how simple it is to add pictures to the wheel of names. One way to do that is shown in the two-minute video below:
Adding shape spinners to your repertoire of spinners will allow you to use the best tool for the job. This can be critical for younger students and special needs learners. Give them a spin.
Feature image available online at on December 14, 2020.
