I’ve just pulled four names out of a hat. The names were people who had entered the prize draw I ran in the most recent issue of my newsletter, Digital Education. (There’s information about the books on offer as prizes here: Prize draw: win an ed tech book.)

Except, of course, it wasn’t a hat at all, but a random name picker. I used to use Excel for this task, but some time ago I decided to use a tool that was already set up for the task, to save me a bit of time.

I think also as the names are online and not saved, it’s a bit safer from a data protection point of view.

The tool I usually use is a fruit machine simulator from Classroom Tools, but this time I thought I’d be super daring and try out the random name spinner. If you want to give it a whirl (groan!), just go here:

Classroom Tools Random Name Spinner.

The next prize will be a book called The Truth About Teaching, by Greg Ashman. To be in with a chance of winning it, subscribe to Digital Education now.