I am a teacher and need an app to quickly divide students into groups.
I envision that it works in/through Excel 2007 or Access 2007, because then the randomizer and the student/class lists would be in the same program and easily accessible. But it could also be Flash or some other thing.
HOW IT WORKS
User can select a class (from the classes one has on that particular occasion), and the list of students in the class show up.
User can then deselect the students that are not present that day.
User can then select group size (how many students in each group) OR group number. (how many groups to divide the students into)
User presses a button ”divide into groups”, and the app shows a list of groups with the names of students in them.
User could also press another button ”Pick random student” and a random student’s name would be shown. On pressing the button again, another random student would be picked from the list but excluding the already chosen students until the whole list of names has been run through.
Some sort of ”reset” mechanism of this randomizing-function would be neccessary .
DESIGN
The UI design could be rough, with one tab (in access or excel) being the ”Setup” of class lists and another tab being the ”main” UI which one selects options from and on which the results are shown.
The Setup screen would have the ability to add new classes and to enter new student names into it or editing existing classses. The user would NOT need to have any experience with Excel, such as entering formulas or setting up new tables.
The main screen would be nicer looking – with clearly marked buttons and the group results displayed clearly and in large letters.
Funny project !
This could be made with an Access database to store classes and students. the user interface can be done either with Access forms or a separate front-end program that will populate the database. (a separate program has better chance to survive to an Office version upgrade and allows to make a nicer interface - without big toolbars comming in the latest MsOffice suites...)
I have experience on MsAccess databases, as well as in generating pseudo-random numbers. Specially for picking one student randomly, I would use a Binary Polynomial algorithm that ensures each item is picked once in a random cycle. After a cycle is finished, a new random seed will be set to start a new full loop in a different order.