Mobile Apps ,

What to Look for When You’re Hunting for a Good Educational mobile App?

What to Look for When You’re Hunting for a Good Educational mobile App?

  • Last Updated on April 13, 2022
  • 6 min read

There are approximately 80,000 apps geared towards education, but not many actually help improve learning.

Every educational mobile application boasts to teach a subject a student may be falling behind in. There are some that do actually help people in learning the subject to a certain extent, while most others are just half hearted attempts by developers to earn money of off a niche.

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There are countless educational apps for every subject that are intended to help students get a better grasp over a subject, say like mathematics, physics, chemistry, English etc.

There are even apps that help differently-abled (we don’t like the word disabled!) children and adults to bridge their learning gaps and to help them function better in their daily lives.

Apps like Talkitt, Be My Eyes and Avaz have cleverly leveraged technology to help children, and adults alike, with ADHD, speech disorder, autism and blindness.

The e- learnings apps growth is not showing any signs of slowing downs and this e-learning platform is projected to increase by 38 billion $ from the year 2020 to the year 2024.

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No matter the kind of educational app – be it a math app, a physics teaching app or an app that helps the most special among us – its success lies in its ability to provide value in the most user friendly and efficient manner to its users.

10 Elements of a Successful Educational App

User friendly UI

For any app to be successful, the UI needs to be super user friendly. Where, at one glance even the least technologically inclined among us can figure out the purpose and function of every feature.

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Quality content

Content is the most significant aspect that you need to see while choosing an educational app. It is because an educational app with great UI, but weak content won’t do any favours to the kids, as the main purpose of these apps is learning.

Moreover, content must be vast and relevant catering to kids of all ages. Content in the app must be comprehensive and of superior quality.

As all the kids doesn’t have the same grasping power, ensure that the language of the content is simple enough for anyone to understand.

Customizable profile and easy log-in

Just like every app out there today, the educational app needs to have an easy log-in function.

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Some good educational apps even provide a dashboard/profile feature which lets the user customize and save their preferences and progress in the learning.

Architecturally strong database

This is a critical element for an educational app. The learning information/material is uploaded onto a database. Students access the material gradually as they progress in their learning.

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The database needs to be architecturally strong to facilitate quick and uninterrupted access to the data. Otherwise, the app would face frequent hang-ups and crashes, seriously dampening the user’s experience.

Collaboration and teachers interaction

Like in the classroom, the learning experience is strengthened when there’s collaboration among the students. The developers need to make an app which provides that virtual environment, where students can not only interact with other students but with their teachers/tutors as well.

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Incorporating a ‘chat now’ option, into the app, with other users and teachers is the right way to go for promoting collaboration and interaction.

Easy flow to the app

It is often seen that kids lose focus if they have to jump from one page to another frequently. Content in the app must be organised in such a way that user is able to utilize all the functionality on the same page itself.

Read More: Why Edtech Hasn’t Solved Education’s Problems

In addition, you must ensure that the app has a smooth flow which doesn’t cause any sort of hindrance to the user’s focus.

Moreover, the app must have icons and arrows which would assist non-readers to navigate the app easily.

Intellectual freedom

The best educational apps provide users the ability to create their own topics/discussions among their peers and get direct one-on-one support from their teachers.

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They need the freedom and ease to be able to inquire about the aspects of the subject that’s troubling them, whenever they want to.

Progress & achievement

An educational app with a feature which shows progress of your kid is very useful as it motivates him/her to do more. Once he/she sees how far they have come they become hungry for more.

This sense of competition makes the acquisition of knowledge simple and interesting

Offline mode

Internet connectivity is still an issue in many parts of the world. If you are in such area then the offline mode in an educational app would be a big plus for your kid.

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This would allow the user to download the specific modules and exercises which the user can read and solve offline.

Gamification

Which kid wouldn’t like to play games? And what if learning is integrated in the form of games? It would be a perfect combination for kids.

If an educational app provides games which teaches different concepts in a fun way then you must get it. Studies have shown that kids learn way faster when they are learning through games.

Who might be looking for an educational app – like, say, an english learning app?

Let’s see.

Teachers teaching English-as-a-foreign language can also benefit from such an app, only if it has the features mentioned above.

Otherwise, an educational app without the ability to collaborate among students, communicate and chat with the teachers and mentors, would soon find its way into the app graveyard.

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Apart from teachers, there’s another audience that might benefit from such an English learning app.

In 2015, the immigrant population reached a record level in the United States of America with 42.1 million foreign born people. This translates to roughly 13.3% of the entire US population.

In a single year, from 2014 to 2015, the US accepted 1.7 million foreign immigrants, with India being the leading country of origin; closely followed by China, Mexico, Canada and the Philippines.

Read More: How Much Does It Cost to make an education App?

What did all these foreign immigrants have in common (apart from Canada)? English was not their first language.

But, each of these immigrants probably had access to a smart phone. And, just like that, because of an English learning app they had the ability to overcome their language barrier quickly and efficiently.

That’s the true power of a well-developed, educational app that’s created to meet the needs of the users and not just as a tool to make some money.

Conclusion

In short, well developed educational mobile apps built with special attention to creating features that would actually promote learning can help not just the students, but make it easier for teachers and teaching institutions to teach.

The experienced developers can build out educational mobile apps that make teachers and learners life easier.

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author-profile

Tej Chalishazar

Tej is an experienced project manager with huge experience in mobile app development. He has worked on a lot of projects for various companies, ranging from startups to large corporations, and has successfully managed multiple projects from inception to launch. With a strong background in software development and project management methodologies, he is able to effectively communicate with cross-functional teams and stakeholders to ensure that projects are delivered successfully.

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