⭐️⭐️In this issue⭐️⭐️

• How Gem items work for beginners

• Pasting a table in Wordwall

• Socratic an AI Tutor from Google

• The rumor mill Koala Business?

• Editorial-Playground Stories

Playground Beginners

💎How Gem items Work

We are blessed with so many new people joining our community. Many of them have the same questions. Gem items being high on that list. Here is a quick explanation that I wish I had when I started.

Wordwall

🤖📙Wordwall - Pasting a Table

Today is another tutorial on making Wordwall content quickly and easily. This time you will learn how to paste an entire table of information into a Wordwall activity with one click. I will be using AI to create the table, but you could certainly make or find your own. Click the presentation below to learn how it works.

AI in education

🤖👩🏻‍🏫Socratic an AI Tutor from Google

This app was just mentioned in one of the AI newsletters I read. I quickly jumped on it to have a look. If Google is behind it, you usually should.

This is a Socratic style tutor app that runs on a phone. You can snap a picture of a problem or question, use voice recognition or type it. The app quickly (and I do mean quickly) runs through the web and returns everything you need to know to solve that problem or question.

I gave it a quick spin and it tried to be true to its Socratic nature by showing you where and how the answer can be found instead of just giving you the answer. It was not always successful. We can only assume that this will get 100 fold better over time, maybe not as much time as we expect.

You should have a look, your students will probably know about this before you do, try and keep up! 😄

Editorial

👨‍💻Playground Stories

Firstly, this is an editorial, or in other words my opinion. I do not claim to be an expert in any of these subjects. These are just my opinions.

Secondly, I want to acknowledge that the Koala team always seems to have our (the teachers) best interests very high on their priority list. I for one appreciate that. 

They only add things that they think will help teachers live a better life. Sometimes the ideas are great, sometimes the ideas are just too early, sometimes the ideas are missing something, sometimes the ideas are just mistakes, we all make mistakes. But the team is always looking out for us and doing the best they can.

Most companies don’t have ideas, and if they did, they wouldn’t implement them because it’s too hard , or risky, or somebody might complain. Most companies care little for their customers, only the shareholder’s interests.

When the Stories were introduced I was super excited about their potential, I still am. I wanted there to be a marketplace where we could sell individual stories, because I didn’t see myself creating enough stories to justify somebody doing a subscription at that amount. The subscription model seemed like it would only work for a couple of people. Sadly, that seems to be where we are today.

With more time to think on the matter here’s what I see:

• There are limited use cases for Stories under the current system. I mainly use them now to demo things I am selling on the marketplace, and to showcase ideas.

• Even with templates they take a long time to create. (Which is a subject for another editorial)

• It takes a few days on average to get them approved and published. So building time + approval time = looooooong lead-time.

• To use them with your own classes (say as homework or review), they need to be published, once published anybody who knows where to look has access to them.

• They are single player only.

• You can’t easily un-publish them.

• And in my opinion the biggest issue is that you can’t use them during classes in Koala Go. Unless you want to screen share…blasphemy

That last issue is what I want to talk about today. I can’t speak for everybody, but as a struggling ESL teacher I need affordable curriculum to teach my classes.

With the current set-up ,if you want to teach in Playground you make your own curriculum or you piece together one by buying individual Playgrounds and stitching them together. Not ideal, and out of my budget with upfront costs.

Most successful curriculum creators use a subscription model because it works. The creator gets a more stable income and the teacher gets an affordable curriculum rental vs a big upfront cost. The creator is incentivized to keep it up to date, continue to build on it and improve it. 

For teaching in Playground to be commonplace, we need an affordable, subscription based curriculum or 2 or 3. Again, this is my opinion.

IF the Stories, which already are a subscription model, were usable during classes just like Playground is, creators could start building full curriculums, get more reliable income, and more teachers would be able to teach in Playground. 

If more teachers are teaching in Playground, then word gets out, then more students want to learn in Playground, then there is more demand for teachers using Koala Go, then everyone lives happily ever after except the people still clinging to ZOOM.

End of editorial: Debate is welcome

The rumor mill

🛍️🐈‍⬛Koala Business?

Wow, they snuck up on us with this one. You probably received an email about this if you are a Koala Go member, but if not here is a link to an upcoming webinar about this new product.

I will be attending the webinar. This is an exciting move. It looks like most of the pieces are on the table now. Who will be the first to put together all the pieces and start a teaching company based on the Koala Go platform? If it’s you, let me know, because I want in…

Submissions

📬Submissions

As always, if you have an article or how-to video or playground launch you would like to share in this newsletter, click the button and send me an email to discuss it.

Bye-bye

👋🏾Well that’s it for issue 5