Why Are Educational Apps Important In This Digital Era?
When the pandemic hit, many countries started to lock themselves down into quarantines. For the sake of life, nobody wanted to go outside as it was a risk to their lives. So students, working professionals, and kids found themselves in a situation where they were supposed to work and continue their education solely at home. This is where Elearning and the development of Educational apps came to the fore and became important. Therefore, Elearning apps are convenient, time-saving, and cost-effective.
Everything favors introducing a new and innovative Elearning app solution to the market now more than ever, and it has a chance to flourish. So if you want to develop or improve such an educational app, surely, you should go for it! But building a successful mobile app for education can’t be done without keeping up with the latest trends in education app development and knowing how to apply them to your business. This is something that the top education app developers always do.
If you’re thinking about making educational mobile apps in this digital era, first understand the mobile learning trends and why it is important. But before that, let’s have a look at the market size of educational apps across the globe.
Market Scenario of Educational Apps
According to a new research report by Global Market Insights, in 2020, the educational app market size excelled at USD 250 billion globally, and is forecasted to grow at an exponential compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 21% between 2021 and 2027. As a result, by 2027, the Elearning Market size is set to surpass USD 1 trillion.
The advancement of new and advanced technologies like cloud-based LMS (learning management schools), Augmented reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are driving the market growth and will continue to do so. The development of an AI-enabled Elearning app solution will help develop digitized study guides, real-time questioning, and creative content.
Educational Mobile Apps Trend
1. Increased Use Of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence is becoming very popular and involved in every phase of our lives. This is because it has perceived the advanced features and functions of almost every piece of technology in this digital era. Indeed, AI has enormous potential when we talk about transforming the landscape of Elearning as well. The most extensively recognized AI (Artificial Intelligence) use includes various voice-assistant software, like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Samsung Bixby, Apple Siri, and Microsoft Cortana.
AI-powered LMS can modify the teaching experience by bringing tangible results while reducing student anxiety. Artificial Intelligence (AI) helps companies personalize the user experience on smart devices and help improve LMS platforms’ teaching capabilities’.
A. Artificial Intelligence In Academics
AI can help break down pits between schools and traditional grade levels. For example, a teacher spends an enormous amount of time grading homework and tests. AI can close the gaps in learning. The most exciting method for closing the gap and achieving a fully personalized learning experience is to help deliver customized virtual tutoring to students despite age and level.
It can facilitate collaboration and communication between classmates, as well as educators and learners. It can also increase engagement and improve efficiency in traditional-based learning scenarios.
B. Artificial Intelligence In Corporate Learning
Nowadays, AI is easing customer services, business operations, employee onboarding, training, and many more. AI is also being used for understanding new hires quickly and seamlessly. Additionally, around 96% of recruiters believe that AI can greatly improve retention and talent acquisition. AI is highly useful in corporate scenarios as it can contribute to improved corporate learning in several ways. Artificial intelligence not only facilitates global interaction but helps personalize Learning and Development (L&D).
L&D software can use AI to recommend training and learning content and prognosticate corporate learners’ behaviour accordingly. AI is adapting to microlearning culture and creating small lessons to fit the modern approach to corporate learning so that employees can learn throughout the day.
2. Chatbots
A chatbot works like an AI-based computer program that resembles human conversations. Bots understand the user intent, process their requests, and give quick relevant answers. Chatbots understand human capabilities and assist them accordingly, and they are known as digital assistants. Bots are used to communicate through voice and text and can be deployed across several applications, messengers, and websites like Whatsapp, Twitter, and Facebook Messenger.
A chatbot is the trendy innovation in mobile technology, and it is one of the essential components of AI. Chatbots can help boost the educational app development process by providing corporate professionals and academics with a personalized learning experience.
A. Chatbots in Academic
As I’ve mentioned above, chatbots help learners by creating a personalized experience. They can do this by enabling learners access to personalized chat-based messaging. A mobile chatbot can assess a learner’s understanding via chat-based interaction and understand their ability to absorb different types of information. It can also simplify discussions and communication between teachers and students within a class, facilitating two-way feedback and developing a collaborative environment.
B. Learning And Development Chatbots
Chatbots are becoming the future of training and development in the corporate industry. Firstly, they will help put employees’ skills and knowledge to better use that improves employee retention and efficiency. We all know that we already have chatbots in business messaging apps, which is helping in several ways, like adding unfinished tasks to conversations when needed most. Moreover, chatbots can introduce new company policies, help in collecting data, track goals, and many more.
3. Gamification Of Learning
Gamification is hardly a unique concept for mobile application developers. On the contrary, successful professional educational app development companies have been using Extended Reality (AR/VR) software for years. Educational technology (EdTech) can be used differently, ranging from integrating video to real-time learning to combining motion and 3D effects to develop more immersive and addictive experiences. Major players of Virtual Reality like the Oculus Quest, Oculus Go, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift permit users to model, paint, and build 3D objects in a virtual environment.
The advancement of these technologies will allow education app developers to build fully immersive AI-based learning experiences that reduce the need for direct learner and educator interaction.
A. Gamification Of Learning In An Academic Environment
Gamification can make complex subjects like chemistry, physics, science much more tangible and easier to understand. Furthermore, a gamified learning approach can add a crucial element of fun and normal subject material, improving retention and facilitating engagement.
It is essential to identify the right balance between fun and learning, but it is not as easy as we think. Therefore, an educational app can manage to find this balance and guarantee success in this environment.
B. Gamification Of Learning In A Corporate Environment
Education app developers can develop a top-notch educational app with feature-rich products that facilitate gamified corporate training. This type of training aims to boost knowledge retention, corporate learner engagement and improve overall employee performance. Gamified solutions help employees learn how to engage with clients effectively and understand a particular product’s features and functions more clearly.
Why There is a Need for Educational Apps?
1. Students and Teachers Can Access a Wider Pool of Learning Resources
As we all know, students already rely on technology in their everyday lives. So, the integration of EdTech into the classroom is very useful. Because it helps students stay engaged by using a familiar tool for academic learning. Educational technology makes learning very interesting.
One of the popular problems students face is that they cannot get a hold of a particular textbook from the library, because it has been reserved by someone else. Thanks to electronic libraries, eBooks can be downloaded and accessed by thousands of people at the same time. Students can find ample educational resources at one place. They can also leverage educational websites and exchange notes and references online.
2. Personalized Learning Experience
EdTech improves the learning experience by incorporating modern technology like machine learning, big data, artificial intelligence, and many more. As a result, teachers can develop more creative and innovative lesson plans to hold their students’ attention. Combining new tech like VR (virtual reality) with traditional classrooms is the best example of how introducing new technology can enhance the learning experience and create new opportunities for the students.
3. Widely Accessible Distant Learning
As we have read in the previous paragraph, technology can enhance the individual learning experience. It can also allow online education, distance learning, and access to up-to-date information. Because each student interprets this information differently, technology can enable more research into more difficult subjects to learn. EdTech provides leverage to the students to learn at their own pace efficiently.
Today most colleges and schools have allowed online learning in their classes. There are many advantages of going the online route. Students already use mobile phones to research and learn, accessing online curriculum resources through the internet or software. With Elearning technology, the whole class can participate in the educational process without ever meeting in a traditional classroom.
4. Instant Feedback and Assessment
Students can email their questions to their teacher and receive instant feedback on their queries. Teachers also have the opportunity to evaluate the performance of each student by just sending them online questionnaires. This greatly reduces the burden of the paperwork that most teachers are familiar with.
5. Adaptive Learning Across All Channels
Traditional methods of teaching assume that all students learn in the same way. In adaptive training, technologies work from the premise that there are custom forms for knowledge acquisition. In essence, education uses technology to suit the needs and learning styles of every student. Adaptive training relies on educational materials developed for the training needs of every student. Adaptive learning provides study material based on the student’s proficiency and knowledge level.
Educational institutions play a vital role in the progress of society, and the growth of technology in learning improves and enhances the quality of education. Online learning platforms offer a flexible learning environment by empowering students to learn at their own pace and also help educators to make learning more engaging and collaborative by leveraging digital tools. Furthermore, adaptive learning ensures that students are engaged in learning to bring out the best results.
6. Use of Lecture Capture Technology
Lecture capture technology creates a digital copy of the audio/video lectures. Instead of being physically present in a classroom students can listen to the lecture and recorded version as many times as they need. Many online educational facilities provide their students with live-stream lectures which occur in real-time. A series of pre-recorded lectures or lessons can be downloaded and used for a future reference.
7. Integration of Smart Screens
Computers, tablets, laptops, and mobile phones are pervasive more than ever now. The use of simulations, graphics, models, graphic calculators, animation, 3D images, audio and video clips on smart screens bring to life the virtual classroom experience making it much more interactive and exciting. In addition, students now are better equipped to access study material at the tip of their finger stroke because a massive amount of information is available on the internet on every topic.
8. Digitalisation of Teaching
At times, students get a detailed idea on a given topic, to strengthen their conceptual understanding, it can also be a matter of concern for the teachers shortly, as they will need to continually upgrade themselves with their knowledge base and remain abreast in their subject domain. Teachers would need to remain at a speed to incorporate technological developments happening around the educational world across the globe. This will also differentiate and highlight areas of improvement between the digitally literate and digitally illiterate.
9. Accountability in Education
Schools must set clear expectations, helping teachers to develop their craft to be able to provide meaningful support that is tailored. Teachers are open to self-motivated learners, to look for new ways to engage students, to help students, to master their subjects, seek advice, and be receptive to critical feedback. Parents must partner in their child’s education to make learning a priority at home and to find ways to better the child’s online classes.
Conclusion
Indeed, Elearning technology is a game-changer in both academic and corporate learning. However, organizations that ignore these trends are unlikely to remain in competition for long. Mobile learning apps can help schools and businesses by providing high-quality education at a minimal cost. The trends I’ve mentioned in this article will contribute to the growth of this sector and ensure Elearning’s success for years to come.
