Polly Stoup found Koala:

• Significantly increases student collaboration“My elementary-aged ESL learners have started to make progress in their English Literacy skills. With the shared browser or co-browser function, students are able to drag items and click while we are working through skills on a game board or in the interactive curriculum I use. We can share interactive books where I can teach them decoding strategies directly in a 1:1 situation. In the activity boards, we are able to use the sticky notes and text boxes to work on creating sentences together and creating words through letter tiles that teach phonetic principles.”
• Significantly improves teaching efficiency“Koala has made learning the tech tools very intuitive, which has saved me time and allowed me more time to devote to planning fun lessons instead of learning a complicated platform. Although I plan my instruction with specific goals in mind, the way that Koala is structured with the ability to load pngs and pdfs right into the activity whiteboards has made me more efficient. I can load my materials ahead of time or I can pull up additional resources to teach something on-the-spot when a student needs additional support.”
• Significantly improves teacher wellbeing“The Koala team offers outstanding customer service. They listen and take action when teachers have a need for a functionality change. This is in stark contrast to what most teachers and independent tutors have experienced in the public school or company sectors. When teachers are heard, it boosts moral. It provides encouragement to keep going. Koala provides an effective way for private tutors to earn income through an amazing platform that keeps students coming back for classes. In turn, the income received helps provide for living expenses. On a personal note, the income I receive from teaching independently goes directly to purchasing my health insurance. The premiums are very costly, so being able to use a robust platform to help me with my income makes a difference in me being able to keep clients and to market effectively to gain more students. The invoicing that Koala added made collecting the income from tutoring very easy and was an added bonus to an already outstanding product.”
• Significantly improves attainment“Koala has created a product with Koala Go that allows my ESL students with tablets to have a kinesthetic learning experience. It is appealing to auditory learners as well because I can present videos and songs into lessons to assist in their learning. The ability to move letter tiles on sticky notes and to change the drawing tool thickness to write with white inside colored rectangles also simulates kinesthetic learning. The accessibility for my ESL learners will lead to more equitable language learning and, ultimately, help them attain the English skills they will need to navigate the world whether that is in higher education, the business/professional realm or for personal fulfillment through international travel.”
• Significantly builds student knowledge“My ESL learners have additional conversational and speaking practice using the playground, which makes it fun for them to ask and answer questions as we are moving about together in the virtual world. It is building confidence as they are speaking and having fun.”