Updated: August 24, 2022
Summary: Mobile apps have gone beyond communication, entertainment, and gamification and extended to multiple fields, especially education. The ongoing upsurge in the number of educational apps has turned out to be the third most well-known mobile app category. The write-up below explores the validity of this trend with a particular focus on the features of successful educational apps.
Remote learning has touched every age group, especially during the past two years. Technology has reformulated the education system, giving people greater access to facilities for learning. Any mobile software that can be a remote learning platform is called an educational app. This integrated learning system offers complete knowledge and end-to-end learning solutions.
Educational Apps cater to a varied age group – toddlers, kids, teenagers, professionals seeking new learning, and specialists trying to gain a knowledge edge. Everybody who wants to ‘learn’ some skill or achieve new knowledge turns to an app. It is perhaps not the brand that always matters so much, as does the knowledge. This trend or attitude of app seekers is more evident in the post-pandemic times.
McKinsey & Co., for example, states,
“Greater demand and rising quality standards also suggest that students are growing savvier about the returns of their educational investments. For some prospective students, especially those moving into high-paying fields such as IT, the opportunity to learn high-demand skills is more important than a program or institution’s brand.”
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What is the importance of Educational Apps?
Statista points out that the worldwide e-learning market is forecast to surpass 243 billion U.S. dollars by 2022…Nearly 65% of teachers support using open educational resources in teaching, and 63% showed interest in the competency-based education system.
E-learning has picked up over the past few years, and the pandemic acted as a catalyst for the process. Working from home has become a way of living, and studying from home has gained momentum. All kinds of learning platforms have benefitted from the concept of apps. Here’s why they gained importance-
- Affordable smartphones: Cost-effective technology, reasonable rates, and easy internet accessibility have made it possible for various genres of people to get access to phone apps.
- Convenient learning: Learning is now timely and efficient. Visuals impact education significantly, and users remember concepts better than rote learning.
- Customized mode and pace: Users can customize and choose from creative options to study and decide how they want to pace a subject learning as per their comfort and timing.
- Universal user: The design and working of many apps are molded as per people with special needs. These apps work on an empathetic design to cater to people of all kinds – whether dyslexic or autistic. AI and intuitive design work to the benefit of all!
Learning apps can be of various types – eBooks, playful apps, worksheet-based, comprehensive format, video-content based, and more!
Benefits of Educational Apps
E-learning Apps have increased in their importance and role over the years. They benefit in the following ways-
- Preference for Apps: The younger generation, especially students, prefer learning from easily accessible Apps for the convenience offered. It gives them psychological relief of not having to visit websites and browsing through excessive topics.
- Mobile & Portable: Learning apps impart knowledge in a mobile & portable manner. It is like having knowledge in your hand all the time. A 24 x 7 learning medium!
- Enhanced Engagement: Knowledge increases engagement when presented in a vibrant, visual, and stimulating way.
- Personalized learning: Apps score with the customized education they bring – the interaction makes it ‘human’ without a physical connection. In that sense, these are convenient and effortless solutions for teaching.
- Systematic mode: Teaching apps come as comprehensive & systematic modes to not just gain knowledge but also have a teacher-student-parent interaction when required since all information, data, and performance records are available for a benchmark discussion all the time.
- Latest Knowledge: With upgrades on the latest knowledge, modern techniques for education, and a cost-effective means of learning, an educational app comes in as a savior to many!
- Effective Time utilization: These e-learning apps are an excellent way to utilize leisure time. They add value to a daily routine.
Several mobile apps claim to provide the best features, but only a few succeed over the rest in the mobile app development sector. If you are planning to develop a learning app, include the below-mentioned fundamental features, which will not only benefit your users considerably but also your business.
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Features of Educational Mobile Apps
1. Robust database & Sharing
An educational app must have a solid database to cater to the intended purpose. Relevant information about the particular learning category and subject must be regularly updated. In the given times when education becomes more and more digitalized, it makes sense to have screen sharing & recording facilities for the apps. Screen sharing makes it convenient to have convenient presentations. Session Recordings lend comfort to students and are helpful for students during exams and assessments. Plus, smooth file sharing helps teachers and students coordinate and exchange information.
2. Excellent UX/UI
Just because it is a learning app doesn’t mean you don’t give due consideration to the user interface and experience. A good UX/UI is essential for an educational app. An attractive design, good functionality, and easy navigation are the base for a successful app that can beat the competition too. Ensure that the UI is not too overwhelming – unless features are user-friendly, your app doesn’t stand a chance with its audience.
3. Video-based Content
Students should be able to view and listen to the pre-recorded lectures or chapter-wise lessons. They get easy access to the classroom at any time of the day. With video content, students can use handy features like zooming into a particular image. It is convenient to rewind/fast-forward anything whenever they want. Video-based content is the turning point of the educational app industry and proves beneficial to students and instructors. Indeed, their demand is progressive.
4. Interactive Content
To increase the downloads of your app several times, the content should be engaging. It must grab the eye of the user at a single glance. Here are the vital factors you need to keep in mind:
- The content should be mobile-friendly.
- The content should be based on specific target audiences.
- The content must include fun facts and exciting stats to retain the learner’s interest.
- Content should be understandable and worth reading as every student is not a quick learner.
- Apps should accommodate feedback for learners.
5. Live Tutorials and Sessions
Your education app must host interactive live sessions and tutorials for the students to polish their skills. Facilitating live tutorials will allow students to interact with the instructor or tutor to ask their queries live, and receive the relevant answers on any given topic or subject. You can create a virtual environment in a classroom by adding the ‘chat now’ feature, wherein you can add instructors/tutors. This helps make an app a complete learning process.
6. Testing Knowledge
Tests are indispensable to learning, and your educational mobile app must execute the same. Thus, your education app must offer a section where mock tests and quizzes are added based on various topics and subjects. This will help students test their knowledge based on capabilities and know which subjects, chapters, or topics need more focus. Also, you can add videos or audio clips of teachers, providing essential tips before the examinations.
7. Multilingual addressed
Whether an app is meant for a global or national audience, multilingual support is essential to broaden the user base and the app’s extensive reach. Working on a wider audience, understanding the app facilities and features, or providing a translation facility enables students to understand better.
8. Offline Mode
The availability of a stable Internet connection can sometimes be a concern, especially in countries that are a bit behind on the Internet spectrum. So, the app must be capable of offering an offline mode, wherein students can download the modules. This can keep their interest alive in your app, and they’ll also visit it whenever needed to seek offline information. Each module they download will give you definite details on how practical the education application is and how the users react to each module. This further helps in course updates and app modification.
9. Gamification
This education app feature is crucial to attract the maximum users and offer them a great user experience. It is plain to see how much ease and fascination the students have for gadgets and games. Ample research shows that students learn more through fun and game experiments. Therefore, nothing better than including healthy gamification in your digital classroom with digital badges. Badges help motivate students to take up study challenges and reach the next level. Gamification helps a student’s cognitive development and increases engagement with the app.
10. Push Notification
Push notification is also considered an essential education app feature and a part of almost every on-demand services app. It connects the app to the users in a non-intrusive way to keep all the users engaged and updated about the latest developments in the app. With the help of push notifications, the app helps you provide comprehensive information or actionable steps to take in the future. It enables you to send messages — like an update, an alert, or an advertisement — to particular users. Note that to include this feature, you need to hire Android or iOS Mobile app developers to make it run successfully in an educational app.
11. Social Media Integration
When it comes to maximizing benefits, maintaining a social network is necessary. Whatever information or content on any subject or topic you are uploading on your app, you can share the details on social media channels like — Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. These platforms add a positive factor to motivate users to study.
You can even create a YouTube channel, where you can upload tutorial videos or audio clips related to your educational app. This way, you directly get in touch with the existing and new users. This motivates the users to engage more with your app to study, leading to the expansion of your audience and the promotion of your app.
12. Personalized Experience
Personalization plays a vital role in mobile apps in enhancing the user experience for your mobile app. Targeted users here are learners of all age groups. The success of an education app depends mainly on a personalized experience that engages the users – this is a core e-learning app feature.
The app must include options like mock tests, feedback, corrections, and custom learning throughout the learning process. If the app responds according to the user’s study manners and methods, the way they want, or their queries get resolved immediately. It further helps improve the user experience.
13. Progress tracking
Progress reports and tests should be a part of educational apps. These help keep the interest alive and aid in enabling students further. Tracking progress and adjusting learning materials according to that is an essential feature that every educational app should have.
The e-learning industry has progressively grown in the past two decades thanks to rising technology. And it continued to grow with better approachability and enhanced learning apps that cater to the requirements of people of all ages. They make learning more fun and interactive than it ever had been. The above-given educational mobile app features will be valuable and motivate learners to download them for better learning prospects.
What Net Solutions can do to help in app creation
App development can help you in reaching across millions of users. Net Solutions is a foresighted and strategic organization working on the agile methodology for a humanistic and innovative design approach for all products. Businesses across various genres have been relying on the company for apps that can solve challenges and offer solutions per client needs.
Net Solutions offers app development for various industries, provides services for consistent app performance, assists in boosting conversions, and offers support services. We have partnered with many B2C, B2B, B2B2C, SMBs, and enterprise organizations in their app development process. We work across the spheres of Automotives, Sports & Fitness, Healthcare, retail & eCommerce, Media, Human Resources, Entertainment, and Education.
Take the example of EdPlace, the company we helped build an App for parents to monitor a child’s performance.
EdPlace is a leading technology platform helping kids improve their English, Science, and Maths skills. With over 10,000 families in their ecosystem, they came to Net Solutions when they needed a tech partner that could build scalable infrastructure with the best features. The result was an innovative, comprehensive, and award-winning product. You can see how we helped the company achieve its motive here.
Eager to build your app to get into the educational sector? Contact us, and we’ll hold your hand through the journey with our sound & expert teams & technology.
Frequently Asked Questions
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01
Are educational apps effective?
Educational apps come with a mix of their plus & minus features – with the pluses far outweighing any negative that people want to pinpoint. Educational app features make these apps effective since they bring in a vast pool of knowledge in a comfortable, accessible, and technologically upgraded method. Interesting UX/UI, recording features, and an interactive teaching mode make education accessible. These apps boost learning abilities and achievements when the study material is tuned to specific student needs.
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02
What part can be improved in using educational apps?
Educational apps need to address software & hardware issues that invariably arise and block learning. As far as the education app features are concerned, there has to be higher ease of access for users, with comfortable UX/UI. Feedback channels need to be improved; otherwise, the app’s purpose doesn’t get served and becomes more of a monologue platform. Students need to have easier access to grades and performance. Notification systems can be better such that event schedules & notifications are more evident and available for all students. Faster feedback helps in better education progress.
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03
How are search engines helpful in Education?
With growing technology upgrades & innovations, search engines have become the preferred places for students to seek information. Instant knowledge available on the internet boosts the learning capabilities of students – and allows them to stay updated about all subjects/topics. AI and algorithms make search engines the best source for authentic answers to all queries. Google remains a popular search engine choice for all age groups. By constantly updating their search engine algorithms and paying attention to the user requirement, intent, and user satisfaction
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04
Which are the best free educational apps for kids?
If you were to just google for educational apps, you’d find many names! Khan Academy has remained one of the top names in the category of educational apps. Some other famous ones are Fact Monster, Coolmath games, Fish School, Science 360, NASA Visualization Explorer, Vocabulary Spelling City, Todo Math, Scratch Jr., Epic, Endless Reader, Duolingo, and Toca Life World.
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