How do I teach algebra online? (Or: what to reach for when 'solve for x' on a webcam isn't sticking)

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Teaching algebra online works when the shared canvas can carry three things a webcam and a screenshare can't: every step of a worked solution, visible to the student in real time and re-usable by them as their working space (not a picture of your steps but the same page you and the student both write on); the notation of algebra one click away — the operations, the powers, the roots, the plus-or-minus, the inequality signs — so building "x² − 3x − 4 = 0" or "3 ≤ 2x + 1 < 11" doesn't stall the lesson while somebody looks up an alt-code; and a graphing surface paired with the whiteboard, because algebra past linear equations lives on a graph as much as on a page, and Desmos in a cobrowser tab is where that graph should live. On Koala Go, the step-by-step whiteboard is the primary surface (Free tier and up, PDF upload on Pro for past papers), the Math Symbols palette carries the notation (Pro covers the elementary and general set; Platinum adds the algebra-specific extras — ² ³ ⁿ π ± ∞ ≤ ≥ ≠ ≈ and the square brackets used in interval notation), and a Desmos cobrowser tab plugs the graphing gap for linear, quadratic, and higher-function work. The rest of this page walks through what changes when algebra teaching moves online, the six or seven teaching moves that carry most algebra tutoring, and where the honest limits sit — plus the age-band picture for pre-algebra through Algebra 2 / A-level.

Why teaching algebra online is a specific kind of hard

Algebra is the subject where most students first hit the wall between "this is arithmetic I can just do" and "this is a rule I have to reason about". It's the moment mathematics turns abstract — a letter stands for a number, an equation is a relationship you can act on, a graph is a picture of a function. Online, three specific problems make that transition harder than it needs to be.

The step-by-step problem. Algebra is taught in the shape of a worked solution — write the equation, do the same thing to both sides, write the new equation, and again. Every line matters, because the point of the lesson isn't the answer but the reasoning that produced it. In an in-person lesson the whole solution accumulates on a shared piece of paper, both of you looking at every line at once. On a video call with a screenshare, the tutor's working is visible but doesn't include the student's — the student is watching, not doing. And with a hand-drawn tablet in the corner of a Zoom window, the resolution is low, the aspect ratio is wrong, and the writing runs off the edge halfway through a longer solve. The move that closes the gap is a shared whiteboard where every step of the solution is a first-class text object, both of you can add lines, and the whole worked solution stays on the page.
The notation problem, but specifically for algebra. Prose keyboards ship none of the symbols algebra needs. "x²" is not the same as "x2"; "≤" is not the same as "less than or equal to" spelled out; "√25" is not the same as "sqrt(25)" typed in an ASCII fallback; "(x + 2)(x − 3)" needs proper round brackets and a proper minus sign to line up correctly. A student typing algebra on their side of the call without an easy way to insert these symbols will either abandon the notation ("x*x = 4" is a genuine thing students type when x² is inaccessible) or ask you every three seconds how to get the character they need. Either way the lesson loses momentum. The solved version is a math symbols palette on the shared whiteboard, one click per symbol.
The graphing problem. Algebra past linear equations lives on a graph as much as on a page — you can't teach quadratics without drawing y = x² − 4, or systems of equations without drawing two lines and pointing at where they cross, or transformations of functions without watching a function move. A static pen-drawn graph on a whiteboard is fine for a one-off demo of a slope-intercept form; it is not the surface you teach a slider-based function-family lesson on. Desmos is the standard free browser-based tool for the graphing side of algebra, and the online-teaching move that closes this gap is opening Desmos in a shared browser tab inside the classroom so both you and the student can drag sliders on coefficients, type new expressions, and watch the graph respond live.

An online algebra workflow that works answers each: a shared whiteboard for the worked-solution surface, a palette for the notation, a cobrowser tab for the graphing. The rest of this page walks through the teaching moves each of those enables — starting with the moment a student first meets a variable, and ending with a paired-tools workflow for late-secondary and exam-prep algebra.

Introducing variables: the "let this be x" move on a shared canvas

The single hardest step in an algebra sequence is the very first one: getting a student to accept that a letter can stand for a number, and that an operation on the letter is an operation on the number the letter represents. Two moves that work well on a shared whiteboard, both grounded in physical-manipulative pedagogy imported from elementary math.

Number rods as unknown lengths

The Number Rods in the Whiteboard Library's Math Tools panel (Pro tier — see the number-sense spoke for the deep tool walkthrough) are Cuisenaire-style rods of ten different lengths, one to ten units. For an algebra introduction, they double as unknown lengths: drop a rod on the canvas, label a text box next to it with "x", and now the rod is x. Drop another identical rod next to it — that's another x, so together they are 2x. Drop a smaller rod of length 3 next to them — that's 3, so the whole line is 2x + 3.

The step that makes it stick is turning that composition into an equation: line up your 2x + 3 composition against a longer rod (say, the length-11 rod doesn't exist in the folder, so instead build the target with a length-10 and a length-1) and now the student can see that if 2x + 3 = 11, then 2x = 8, then x = 4. The rod length verifies the answer. This is the concrete side of the balance-scale metaphor below, and it's the pattern that gets an 8-to-10-year-old to internalise "x is just a specific number I don't know yet" faster than any prose explanation.

Balance-scale metaphor for equations

The classical balance-scale metaphor for solving linear equations — the two sides of the equation are the two sides of a scale, and to keep it balanced you must do the same thing to both sides — works on a shared whiteboard as a two-column layout. Draw a vertical line down the middle of the canvas (use the Pro straight-line tool). On the left write the left-hand side of the equation ("2x + 3"); on the right write the right-hand side ("11"). Now the student can see the two sides as two separate objects. Subtract 3 from each side in the next row down; the student writes "− 3" in a text box under each side. The next row down shows "2x" on the left and "8" on the right. Divide each side by 2 in the next row; the final row shows "x" on the left and "4" on the right. Six lines, ten seconds of typing, and the student has watched a solve happen as a sequence of moves rather than as a single leap.

Both the rod pattern and the balance-scale pattern are Pro-tier moves — the rods themselves are Pro, the straight-line tool is Pro, the operations symbols are Pro. A Pro tutor teaching pre-algebra introductions has everything they need for both. Where Platinum starts to earn its keep is later, when the equations involve powers, roots, or inequalities using the Platinum symbols.

Solving equations step by step — the whiteboard is a working page

Once a student has accepted variables, most of pre-algebra and Algebra 1 is a sequence of equation-solving lessons of increasing complexity: one-step, two-step, multi-step, equations with variables on both sides, equations with fractions, equations with brackets, equations with negative coefficients, and eventually linear systems and quadratics. Every one of these is a step-by-step process, and the online workflow that carries them all is the same:

Drop the equation at the top of the whiteboard. Type it into a text box. Use the palette's Pro operations set (+ − × ÷ =) so the minus is a proper minus (U+2212, centres against digits) and the equals is a proper equals. Round brackets from the palette (Pro) for grouping.
Write the next step directly under it. New text box, aligned vertically. If the move is "subtract 3 from both sides", the student writes the annotation "− 3 both sides" or "|− 3" next to the arrow, and then writes the resulting equation on the next line.
Colour the pen or the text if you want to flag a specific move. The whiteboard's pen has multiple colours; the same for text-box border and fill. Use a colour to mark the operation you did to both sides.
The student writes the next step, not you. The whole point of a shared whiteboard is that the student is on the same canvas — so once the pattern is established, the student takes the next line, not you. This is the difference between watching algebra get done and doing algebra. If you want the student to try the whole rest of the solve, hand them the marker (metaphorically) by adding "your turn" to the last step you wrote.
Check the answer at the bottom. Substitute the value back into the original equation, evaluate both sides, and confirm they match. This is the step most students skip in their notebook because it's tedious; on a shared whiteboard where the check is just one more line, the tutor can make it a habit.

The palette symbols that come in as equations get more complex, in roughly the order they appear across pre-algebra and Algebra 1:

Round brackets (Pro). Grouped terms, distributive-property practice.
Fraction slash (Pro). Equations with algebraic fractions like "x/3 + 2 = 5" or "(x + 1)/(x − 2) = 3". Written inline as an ASCII-style slash rather than a stacked-bar fraction — see the honest-limit section below.
Square root (Pro). "x = √25" as a first-taste of radicals in solving equations. A symbol you type before a number or a bracketed expression — no radicand-under-a-bar renderer, so "√(x + 3)" is written with explicit parentheses.
Superscript two and three, and n (Platinum). "x² + 3x − 4 = 0" — the moment quadratics show up, the Platinum Powers category earns its keep. Superscripts stop at ⁿ (a discrete Unicode glyph); anything above ³ that's not just ⁿ needs a caret notation like "x⁴" written as "x^4" — fine for the lesson, worth flagging to the student that the exam typeset version uses a real superscript.
Plus-or-minus (Platinum). The quadratic-formula answer "x = (−b ± √(b² − 4ac)) / (2a)" — the ± lives in the Platinum Algebra category.
Pi and infinity (Platinum). π in circle-formula word problems that translate to algebra ("if the area of a circle is 100 cm², what is the radius?" → "100 = πr²"). Infinity in interval-notation solutions ("x ∈ (3, ∞)").
Less-than-or-equal, greater-than-or-equal, not-equal, approximately-equal (Platinum). Inequalities move from "x < 8" (Pro) to "3 ≤ 2x + 1 < 11" (Platinum) the moment compound inequalities show up.
Square and curly brackets (Platinum). Interval notation "[3, 7)"; set-builder notation "{ x : x ≥ 5 }".

For the full palette walkthrough — the two entry points (Whiteboard Library folder and the ∑ sidebar popup), tier gating, and the six common notation moves — see the write math equations online spoke. Here we're on the algebra pedagogy side: which notation shows up when in the algebra curriculum, and how to walk a student through it.

Expanding and factoring — the area-model on the whiteboard

Two of the most-taught algebra moves — expanding (x + 2)(x + 3) into x² + 5x + 6, and factoring x² + 5x + 6 back into (x + 2)(x + 3) — are usually learned as a pair. Both benefit from a visual, and the visual most middle-school programs settle on is the area model: draw a rectangle whose sides are (x + 2) and (x + 3), split it into four sub-rectangles, and the sum of the four areas is the expanded expression.

On a shared whiteboard the area model is a small drawing:

Use the Pro rectangle shape from the shape library (see the geometry spoke for the shape library's tier splits). Drop a rectangle, and inside it draw two horizontal or vertical dividing lines with the Pro line tool to split it into four sub-rectangles.
Label each sub-rectangle's dimensions and area with palette-built text boxes: top-left is x by x = x², top-right is x by 3 = 3x, bottom-left is 2 by x = 2x, bottom-right is 2 by 3 = 6. Use the Platinum ² for the x² label if you have Platinum; on Pro, write "x^2" in caret notation as the visible fallback.
Sum the four areas in a text box next to the rectangle: x² + 3x + 2x + 6 = x² + 5x + 6.

Now factoring is the same picture in reverse: you're given x² + 5x + 6, and the question is what rectangle has that as its area. The student splits the middle term (5x = 3x + 2x), lays out the four regions, and reads off the sides (x + 3) and (x + 2). Both directions of the operation live on the same canvas, and the student can see that expanding and factoring are two views of the same picture rather than two independent procedures.

This is the pattern that generalises: the area model works for expanding (x + 2)(x − 3), for factoring x² − x − 6, for completing the square, and — with a 3×3 grid — for expanding a trinomial-times-trinomial. It doesn't help with rational expressions or with cubics and higher, so the tutor's move is to lean on it hard for the quadratic middle band (Algebra 1 second half through Algebra 2 first half) and drop it when the algebra outgrows it.

An honest limit: the Pro-tier tutor who doesn't want to reach for Platinum for the ² glyph can teach the whole area model with "x^2" written in caret notation — the pedagogy is intact, the notation is the working shorthand rather than the typeset version. A Platinum-tier tutor gets the properly-rendered x² throughout, which some tutors prefer for pattern-recognition with what the exam board will typeset.

Graphing lines, quadratics, and function families — pair Desmos in a cobrowser tab

Algebra past linear equations lives on a graph as much as on a page, and Koala Go's whiteboard is not a live-plotting canvas. A rough hand-drawn slope-intercept line is fine for a one-off demo; a coefficient-slider lesson on y = ax² + bx + c is not. The move that closes the gap is opening Desmos in a shared browser tab inside the classroom via the cobrowser.

A cobrowser is a shared browser window inside the lesson — you open Desmos, and both you and the student can drag sliders, type new expressions, and adjust the domain live, not screen-sharing but actual shared control on the same page. The specific algebra lessons Desmos + cobrowser carries better than the whiteboard alone:

Linear functions. y = mx + b with sliders on m and b. Watch the slope tilt the line and the intercept move it up and down. Students see "slope" and "y-intercept" as things that live on the graph, not just as coefficients in an equation.
Quadratic functions. y = ax² + bx + c with sliders on a, b, c. Or the vertex form y = a(x − h)² + k with sliders on a, h, k — watch how the vertex moves. This is the lesson where most students first understand that changing a coefficient does something visible to the graph.
Systems of equations. Two linear equations on the same axes; the intersection is the solution. The student can drag one of the lines' coefficients and watch the intersection move — much clearer than "substitute and solve" on a page.
Inequalities. "y > 2x − 3" shades a half-plane; the student can see what points satisfy the inequality by looking at the shading. Same for compound inequalities and systems of inequalities.
Function transformations. Start with y = x², and change to y = (x − 2)² + 3 — watch the parabola slide. Same for stretching, reflecting, absolute-value transformations.
Rational functions and asymptotes. y = 1/x, y = (x + 1)/(x − 2), and see the asymptotes as the graph goes off to infinity — a visual the whiteboard genuinely cannot carry.

The pairing pattern most working online algebra tutors converge on: whiteboard for the algebra (equation-solving, factoring, algebraic manipulation, worked-out steps, answer checks, uploaded past papers annotated with palette notation) plus Desmos in the cobrowser for the graphing (function families, transformations, systems, inequalities as regions, coordinate-geometry adjacencies). Together they carry most of Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 cleanly.

Cobrowser is capped at 10 minutes per session with a 20-minute cool-down on Koala Free; unlimited on Pro and up. For an algebra-heavy caseload, unlimited cobrowser on Pro is functionally the same practical floor as it is for geometry (paired GeoGebra) and exam prep (paired subject-specific practice sites) — a full Desmos-driven algebra lesson doesn't fit in 10-minute windows.

Word problems that translate to algebra

The other half of most algebra courses is word problems: a paragraph of English that has to become an equation before it can be solved. This is where a lot of students stall — the translation is a separate skill from the algebra, and it's the one that's least well-taught in a lot of curricula.

The workflow that works on a shared whiteboard has four steps, all done in text boxes on the same canvas:

Read the problem — no algebra yet. Paste or type the problem statement into a text box at the top of the canvas. Both of you read it out loud.
Identify the unknown. Below the problem, write "Let x = ..." in a new text box and finish the sentence with what x stands for. Being explicit about this in words, in every problem, is the move that eventually generalises. If the problem has two unknowns, write "Let x = ..." and "Let y = ..." on two lines.
Translate the relationships to algebra, one sentence at a time. Underneath, break the problem's information into short sentences ("Their combined age is 30" / "The larger number is three more than twice the smaller"). Write each sentence as an equation using the palette. This step-by-step translation is what most students find hardest and is the one you can most obviously scaffold on a whiteboard by writing the sentence on the left and the equation on the right of the same line.
Solve the system. Now the problem has become the algebra you've been teaching in the previous section. Solve step by step underneath.

The reason this workflow beats a screenshare-and-narrate lesson: every step is visible to the student on the same canvas, in text boxes they can point at, refer back to, and add to. When they get stuck on step 3 in their notebook next week, they can hover over the same-shaped step on the whiteboard's persistent state and see the pattern.

For younger students meeting word problems for the first time, a Singapore-math-style bar model can sit alongside the algebra: draw a bar labelled "x" and a second bar labelled "x + 3" for a "the larger is three more than the smaller" problem, and the student can see the two quantities as lengths before they see them as symbols. The bar-model tool is the same as the number-rod tool from the number-sense spoke — rods stand in for bars.

Algebraic fractions, rational expressions, and radicals — where the palette's honest limit shows up

By the second half of Algebra 1 and through Algebra 2, algebra takes on notation the palette handles but doesn't render exactly the way a printed textbook does. Three specific cases and the workaround for each:

Algebraic fractions written inline. "(x + 2)/(x − 3)" is written with the Pro slash and round brackets — perfectly readable inline, and this is how a lot of algebra software (Desmos, Wolfram Alpha, Python) expects fractions to be typed. Not a rendered stacked fraction with a horizontal bar. For a lesson focused on simplifying rational expressions ("cancel the (x + 1) top and bottom"), the inline notation reads fine because the operations are happening in-line anyway. If the lesson genuinely needs a stacked-fraction display for a printed-textbook lookalike, the paired workflow is: (a) upload the textbook page as a PDF (Pro tier) and annotate the printed fraction directly, or (b) open Desmos or a rendered-LaTeX site in the cobrowser for the display side.
Radicals with the radicand under a bar. The Pro square-root symbol √ is a symbol you type before a number or bracketed expression — "√25", "√(x + 3)". No horizontal bar continues over the radicand. For arithmetic and low-secondary algebra where "√25 = 5" and "√(x + 3) = 4" are typeable inline, this is fine. For a nested radical or a rendered-bar radical the lesson genuinely needs, pair a Desmos or LaTeX renderer in the cobrowser.
Higher exponents. The palette's Powers category has ² ³ ⁿ. For x², x³, and x-to-the-n these render perfectly; for x⁴, x⁵, and higher there's no discrete glyph in the palette. The workaround most tutors use is caret notation ("x^4", "x^5") — the same notation Desmos and most programming languages use, and one students learn to read anyway. Worth being explicit about with the student: "the exam version will typeset this as a raised numeral; we're writing x^4 so we don't have to stop the lesson." No shame in the caret; it's the working notation for a reason.

The pattern in all three: the whiteboard palette handles the algebra manipulation — grouping, cancellation, distributing, factoring, substituting — even when the exact typeset rendering is not what a textbook would show. When the lesson needs a rendered display (a stacked fraction with a horizontal bar, a radicand under a bar, a fifth power as a raised numeral, a proper LaTeX-shaped display equation), the paired cobrowser tab into Desmos or a LaTeX renderer does the rendering side, and the whiteboard does the working side. This is the same honest-limit pattern the notation spoke names in more depth.

By age band: what tutors actually teach and how the tools slot in

Different age bands lean into different parts of the algebra toolkit. Grades are typical US placements, not standards claims — UK / IB / A-level students meet the same content on a somewhat shifted schedule, and adult learners come to algebra at whichever age they need it.

Grades 6-7 (ages 11-13): pre-algebra. Introduction to variables, order of operations, one-step and two-step linear equations, ratios and proportions, integers and negative numbers, first exposure to inequalities. Whiteboard for the step-by-step; number rods (Pro) for the "let this rod be x" bridge; number lines (Pro, including the −10 to 10 line — see the number-sense spoke) for negative numbers and integer arithmetic. Palette symbols in use: Pro operations, Pro brackets, Pro fraction slash, Pro compare (< >). Very little Platinum yet — pre-algebra is squarely within Pro's palette. Playground / Gems can still carry engagement for the youngest end of the band (11 year olds who are behind grade level and would rather not be doing algebra).
Grade 8 or 9 (ages 13-15): Algebra 1 (US) / Year 9-10 (UK GCSE). Linear equations and inequalities, systems of linear equations, introduction to quadratics via factoring and the quadratic formula, exponents and radicals, introduction to functions and graphs. This is where Platinum starts to earn its keep for a math-focused tutor: the ² glyph for polynomial expressions, ± for the quadratic-formula answer, the Compare extras (≤ ≥ ≠) for compound inequalities, [ ] for interval notation. The Desmos cobrowser pairing is essentially required for the graphing side (linear graphs, quadratic parabolas, systems as intersecting lines). PDF upload on Pro becomes a workflow for practice-set worksheets.
Grades 10-11 (ages 15-17): Algebra 2 (US) / Year 12-13 (UK A-level). Polynomial functions and division, rational expressions and equations, radicals and rational exponents, exponential and logarithmic functions, sequences and series, matrices, conic sections. All the Platinum algebra symbols come into play (π ± ∞ ² ³ ⁿ ≤ ≥ ≠ ≈ [ ] { }); Desmos cobrowser is the primary graphing surface for every function family; uploaded past-paper PDFs (Pro) become the primary practice surface. This is the tier band where the paired-tool workflow is fully weight-bearing.
Exam-prep algebra (SAT / ACT / A-level / IB, all ages). Uploaded past paper on the whiteboard, palette symbols for the algebra, Desmos cobrowser for the questions that involve a graph. This is the workflow described in how do I teach exam prep online? — for algebra specifically, past-paper practice is the vein of gold.

Rate-band note: math tutoring — including algebra tutoring — typically commands a 15-30% premium over the generalist band, and specialist exam-prep algebra (SAT / ACT / A-level math) sits at the upper end. See how much should I charge for online tutoring? for the pricing walkthrough.

Practice, homework, and drill for algebra between lessons

Algebra needs repetition, and the between-lesson practice loop matters as much as the lesson itself. Three patterns most working online algebra tutors converge on:

Uploaded past-paper PDF as the lesson surface. On Koala Pro, upload the past paper or the textbook problem set as a PDF; both of you annotate on top of the printed problem with pen and text boxes using palette notation. The uploaded material persists across lessons — next week you re-open the same page and last week's work is still there.
Cobrowser to adaptive algebra practice. Khan Academy's algebra practice and IXL's algebra units are the two most-used adaptive practice sites; both open cleanly in the cobrowser. Bring the student into the practice rather than sending them out to it — you see exactly what they typed, catch the misstep in the working, and jump in without them window-switching. See what is a cobrowser? for the mechanic.
Small specific ask between lessons. "Try three problems from this set and bring me the working" beats "practise algebra for 30 minutes". The homework workflow that most tutors converge on is in how do I give homework to online tutoring students?

A note on step-by-step solvers (Photomath, Symbolab, Mathway, ChatGPT-with-math-mode). These are useful for a tutor to check a worked solution or generate practice problems, but they are unhelpful as a between-lesson tool for a student who is trying to learn to do algebra themselves — a solver gives the answer without building the skill. The move most working tutors settle on: use solvers on your side for prep and answer-checking; don't route the student through them. Cobrowser into a practice site that shows one hint at a time (Khan Academy is designed this way) rather than a solver that shows the whole solution.

Common failure modes and honest limits

Things that go wrong in online-algebra workflows, and the fix:

Doing the algebra on your side and screensharing it. The student watches you work through a solve and thinks they've followed it. They don't try the same solve themselves until they're on their own after the lesson — where it turns out they didn't follow it, they followed you. Fix: the whiteboard is shared, so as soon as you've demonstrated one solve, hand the marker over — "your turn on this next one, I'll watch." The student does the algebra with you present rather than after you're gone.
Typing "x2" and hoping it reads as x-squared. "x2" is a variable next to a two, and the student's brain reads it as such. Insert the Platinum "²" from the palette Powers category, or on Pro write "x^2" in caret notation. Don't leave the notation ambiguous — algebra runs on pattern-recognition, and the pattern breaks the moment the notation does.
Typing "sqrt(x + 3)" as a fallback for √(x + 3). The palette's Pro √ is one click; the "sqrt(" workaround is six keystrokes and reads as a function-call rather than a radical. Same for using "-" (keyboard hyphen) instead of the palette's "−" (proper minus). Small fixes, but they add up over a lesson.
Using Desmos to solve rather than to teach. Desmos will happily plot y = x² − 5x + 6 and show that the roots are at 2 and 3 without the student ever having factored the quadratic themselves. The pairing pattern works when Desmos is the graphing tool (visualisation, function-family exploration, checking answers) and the whiteboard is the algebra tool (the factoring, the equation-solving, the algebraic manipulation). If Desmos is doing both, the student isn't learning algebra — they're learning Desmos.
Free-tier tutors seeing the palette locked. On Koala Free the Math Symbols palette shows every symbol locked — the palette itself is a Pro-and-up feature. A tutor trialling Koala Go for algebra needs at least the trial or Pro plan to evaluate the notation side. The whiteboard, cobrowser (capped), image upload, and Playground are on Free, so a Free tutor can trial the equation-solving workflow using keyboard-typed notation, but the palette-powered version needs Pro.
Enterprise / B2B tutors not seeing Platinum algebra symbols. B2B tutors are provisioned at Pro feature level, and Platinum symbols are hidden entirely from their palette (not shown locked — hidden). For a middle-school or secondary math deployment inside a B2B account, this is worth flagging to the administrator: Platinum-symbol algebra work (² ³ ⁿ π ± ∞ ≤ ≥ ≠ ≈ [ ] { }) needs a Platinum-tier plan.
iPad-only workflow for a student doing algebra. Koala Go works on iPad, but the narrow-symbol grid in the palette folder is fiddlier on a finger than on a mouse — the ≤ and ² and ⁿ symbols are small tap targets. If a student uses iPad exclusively, the ∑ sidebar popup (which appears next to the selected text box rather than in the Library sidebar) is a slightly easier click, and the tutor can pre-drop palette-heavy notation on the canvas in advance so the student's job is dragging and typing rather than fine-symbol picking.

Three limits worth naming plainly rather than papering over:

Not a computer-algebra system. Koala Go's whiteboard is a working surface for algebra — you and the student write algebra on it. It is not a symbolic-manipulation engine — it will not automatically simplify (x + 2)(x − 3) into x² − x − 6, or automatically solve x² − 5x + 6 = 0 for you. Both are pedagogically fine (the point is to teach the student to do the algebra, not to watch a machine do it); if you or the student needs a symbolic step-by-step for prep or checking, that's Symbolab / Wolfram Alpha / Photomath territory, opened in the cobrowser or on your side before the lesson.
Not a live-plotting canvas. The whiteboard has pen, shape, and line tools but does not plot a function y = f(x) live as you type it. For any lesson whose whole point is graphing (linear functions, quadratics, transformations, function families, systems, inequalities as regions), the paired workflow is Desmos in the cobrowser. This is not a shipping-soon promise; the whiteboard is the algebra surface and Desmos is the graphing surface, by design.
Not a full LaTeX renderer. The palette does not render stacked fractions with a horizontal bar, radicands under a bar, higher-than-cube exponents as raised numerals, matrix layouts, or LaTeX-shaped display equations. Algebraic manipulation is expressible inline in the palette's Pro + Platinum sets; typeset rendering pairs with a cobrowser tab into Desmos or a rendered-LaTeX site. Same honest-limit boundary the notation spoke #2417 names in more depth — see the notation spoke.

Practical setup on Koala Go for an algebra-heavy caseload

If you're evaluating Koala Go for pre-algebra through Algebra 2 / A-level specifically, here's the practical picture and where the current lines sit:

Whiteboard is the primary working surface. Shared canvas, both tutor and student can write, text boxes are first-class objects, boxes persist across lessons. Free tier and up.
Palette is Pro for the base, Platinum for the algebra extras. Pro ($25.99/month monthly, $21.99/month billed annually) covers pre-algebra and most of Algebra 1's palette needs — the operations, base compare, fractions/ratios/percents, square root, degrees, and round brackets. Platinum ($49.99/month monthly, $39.99/month billed annually) adds the algebra-specific extras — ² ³ ⁿ π ± ∞ ≤ ≥ ≠ ≈ and the square/curly brackets used in interval and set-builder notation. Enterprise / B2B tutors are provisioned Pro-level with Platinum symbols hidden.
PDF and PowerPoint upload for past papers, worksheets, and textbook pages (Pro). Upload the material, annotate on top with pen, shapes, and palette-notated text boxes. Textbook algebra practice becomes a shared-canvas workflow instead of a screenshare-and-narrate.
Cobrowser for Desmos, Khan Academy, IXL, Wolfram Alpha (unlimited on Pro, capped on Free). Open the site in a shared browser window inside the classroom — student clicks and drags on the live page. Desmos is the graphing surface; Khan / IXL are adaptive practice. See what is a cobrowser? for the mechanic.
Number rods (Pro) as concrete bridges to variables. The "let this rod be x" pattern for introducing variables — pairs with the balance-scale metaphor for solving equations. See the number-sense spoke for the rod set.
Rectangle from the shape library (Pro) as an area-model surface. Drop a rectangle, split it into sub-rectangles for the area-model workflow that visualises expanding and factoring. The full shape library is walked through in the geometry spoke.
Recording for parent review or student self-review. Local recording is on Pro; cloud recording of scheduled lessons comes with Platinum. Useful when a student wants to re-watch a step-by-step solve. See record online tutoring lessons.
Free tier as a trial. Free caps sessions at four students, includes whiteboard, image upload, and a capped cobrowser, but the Math Symbols palette is Pro-and-up. Free is a trial surface for algebra, not the day-to-day.

Honest limits worth flagging that show up in real algebra work regardless of platform: iPad is rougher than desktop for narrow-symbol picking; students in mainland China sometimes hit connection issues (we route through Hong Kong proxies but the Great Firewall is a moving target — see teaching students in mainland China for the workaround pattern); and the palette is a symbols set rather than an equation renderer, so stacked fractions, higher exponents, radicand-under-a-bar radicals, and live graphs pair with a Desmos or LaTeX cobrowser tab rather than living on the whiteboard.

Where Koala Go isn't the right pick for algebra

Two honest tradeoffs worth naming, so you know before you sign up:

Pure symbolic-manipulation tutoring as the primary surface. If every lesson you teach is symbolic manipulation of complex expressions (partial fractions, Laplace transforms, extensive matrix work) and you want a full LaTeX-rendered display equation as the working surface, a dedicated STEM whiteboard with a real equation editor (see the whiteboard-tool comparison) will render the notation closer to a printed page. Koala Go's palette handles the notation of pre-algebra through Algebra 2 inline; the honest limit is the render, not the manipulation. For calculus-and-above where every third line has a stacked fraction or a nested radical, a LaTeX-first whiteboard is a fair alternative to a paired Desmos cobrowser tab.
Whole-class delivery to a 25-student algebra class. Koala Go is calibrated for 1-on-1 and small-group tutoring — the Free tier caps sessions at four students. It's not built for full school-class synchronous delivery of the kind Nearpod or Pear Deck are designed for. For a whole-class algebra lesson, look at platforms built for whole-class delivery.

How do I teach algebra online? (Or: what to reach for when 'solve for x' on a webcam isn't sticking)

Why teaching algebra online is a specific kind of hard

Introducing variables: the "let this be x" move on a shared canvas

Number rods as unknown lengths

Balance-scale metaphor for equations

Solving equations step by step — the whiteboard is a working page

Expanding and factoring — the area-model on the whiteboard

Graphing lines, quadratics, and function families — pair Desmos in a cobrowser tab

Word problems that translate to algebra

Algebraic fractions, rational expressions, and radicals — where the palette's honest limit shows up

By age band: what tutors actually teach and how the tools slot in

Practice, homework, and drill for algebra between lessons

Common failure modes and honest limits

Practical setup on Koala Go for an algebra-heavy caseload

Where Koala Go isn't the right pick for algebra

Related answers in the math cluster

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