Why draw a name instead of choosing one?
Because the class can see it happen. A teacher choosing who answers is making a judgement call thirty times an hour, and pupils keep score of it whether or not anyone means them to — the quiet ones learn they are safe, the confident ones learn they are the default.
A wheel takes the judgement out of the moment without taking it out of the lesson. You still decide who is on the list, whether somebody sits out today, and what happens after a name comes up. What you hand over is the one part nobody benefits from you owning.
How do I get a class list onto the wheel?
Switch the list to its text view and paste the register in, one name per line. Thirty names paste in a second and the wheel redraws as you go; an export from a register system works the same way once it is one name per line.
Save the wheel once and it is there tomorrow. Signed out it stays in this browser; with an account it follows you to the classroom machine, the laptop and the phone. Either way the list never has to be typed twice.
Should elimination mode stay on?
Keep it on when you are working through the room. Each name leaves the wheel as it is drawn, so thirty spins call thirty different pupils and nobody is asked twice while somebody else is asked never.
Turn it off for practice drills, where the point is that any name can come up at any time. The switch is in the wheel’s rules popover, and it changes nothing about how the draw itself is made.
What else is this wheel good for?
It is the plain name wheel with your register on it, so anything that works there works here. For spelling practice and word games, the letter wheel draws the letter and the class supplies the word.
Run the same list to the end instead of stopping at the first name and you have a presentation order. Give every name one ticket instead of one turn and it becomes a raffle draw.