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Now with the help of educational applications and websites, it has been possible to create a new benchmark for an interactive learning experience and a better understanding of topics.
In addition to this, the education sector is developing new methods of educating children so that they learn quickly and deliver productive results.
But building an educational website that meets the goals and requirements of every student is a tedious task. Along with offering an extraordinary approach to learning as well as training, it also serves the purpose of encouraging the participants by building a customized environment for learning.
These websites also provide a virtual classroom with the option of learning anything and everything from anywhere irrespective of time.
The companies tend to hire app developers in order to create their team and work towards it.
Many startups decide to develop educational applications but only a few of them succeed. The main reason behind this is the idea of development. One needs to decide the features depending upon the operational level and type of application.
The developers must also take care of the potential audience they are focussing on. For instance, if an educational application is developed for a particular audience or institution, it must be taken care that the application holds all features that are suitable for that particular institution and neglect all other irrelevant features.
Things To Keep In Mind While Developing Educational Applications
Education app development has speeded up due to a large number of applications of mobile phones and their popularity and their contribution to the process of training and education purposes as well as learning application development.
However, there are some fundamental features that need to be included in order to provide quality education to students and maintaining the demand as well as reputation in the market. As it is well known that if a list of features of any education application is made, it will go long based on different situations like operational levels, geographical locations, the mental ability of students and so on.
Whether it is an android or iOS app development company, everyone wishes to make their mark on the landscape of application development.
But still, there are some things that are a must and should be kept in mind while developing educational applications of optimum quality. These features are as follows:
1. Details of the course:
The details related to the course like the syllabus, lessons used for the learning process, workshops, learning teams, calendar, and also an assignment, these things should be included as modules in the structure of the course in the education application.
The different modules can be added in the weekly format or as a different learning unit that the end-users can download for future reference. The application should allow the students to access all the study material available on the application seamlessly in order to get maximum benefits from the application.
If the details of the course are not defined properly or if the application doesn’t provide the students with a clearly outlined course it will be difficult for them to compile and study, much time will be wasted and the students might switch to some other education application because of the haphazard arrangement of the course.
2. Notification updates:
The application should keep the students updated with the course, if anything new is added, or a test is coming up, or a lesson is incomplete, the application should prompt the students to resume the course, or check out the newly added material.
The notification should be real-time, the students should be able to check anything new that has been added into the course as soon as it goes live on the app.
This feature can also be powered by wallet app development companies. This means if people have their account registered in the wallet and the education application is providing some deals in their packages, the notification must go to all people who have that wallet application on their smartphones.
This will increase the reach as well as prove to be a great tool for marketing and publicity.
3. Forum for discussion:
This is a very interesting feature of any educational application. A discussion can be explained as a platform that allows communication as well as the participation of students along with the teachers in discussions regarding common topics, chapters or subjects.
For doing so, they can use a smartphone. If the application is made cross-platform, the members of the discussion forum can also use any device of their preference such as laptops, mobile phones, computers, tablets, etc.
4. Messaging Option:
The messaging option is a unique feature that can increase the interactive nature of the application. This facility allows the students to deliver their doubts, questions and other issues to their respective teachers through messages.
Then, as a reply, teachers can also respond to those messages and provide the needful solution. This facility also gives teachers the freedom to message in a collective way or to filter out the names of students and message them individually.
Read the blog- Let us Understand how Technology and Education Are Evolving Together
5. Course-related activities:
Many educational applications provide only the facility of discussion and activity forum but lack the details of the course activities.
With the help of this facility, students can know about all the events happening in each class. This feature can also help the students to sort all the activities according to date, time, chapter or any other relevant filter.
6. Planner and Scheduler:
Nothing can be achieved without planning, not even in education. The students should be provided with an option to make a study plan on the application itself.
The application should provide the students with a customizable study module that works according to the plan created by them. There should also be an option for a schedule so that the students can schedule what they want to do and at what time.
This will make the application efficient for the students.
7. Surveys and Tests:
This feature is important for both the teachers and the course creator on the application. The course creators will get to know how much the students are able to understand their lessons through proper analysis of their results.
The students will be able to know how much of the course did they complete and with how much efficiency, how much more they need to study. The marks of the students will help them know where they stand, if the study plan is going in the right direction, or they need to make some changes in it.
8. Live sessions:
There should be live sessions included in every course. This will help the students to clear their doubts directly with the teachers.
This will also help the teachers who create the course to understand the students who are studying through the application. With live sessions, many problems can be solved, and the students will feel more connected to the application if they can interact with the course creators directly via the application.
9. Payment options:
Educational applications have paid as well as free courses for their users. They must provide efficient payment services for paid and registered users for a hassle-free experience.
Wallet application development companies all over the globe combine with these applications so that users irrespective of their country can pay and enjoy the experience of learning. It increases the potential audience and attracts lots of people.
Things which must be considered to make the app different and more interactive than others
Educational applications are never consistent. This means the demands and requirements of the educational application keeps changing and the expectations related to them are quite high.
Hence the developer needs to be persistent and sure while developing as well as designing an educational app. The significant features have already been mentioned in the above paragraph, below are some things which must be considered to make the app different and more interactive than others:
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Conducting deep research:
Before developing any application, the education app development team needs to do deep and proper research about the target audience of the application.
Doing proper research is important because without it the final outline and the configuration of the application cannot be decided. Many things like the social qualities, proper use of commonly used words, and more, are needed to be inculcated based on the interests of the target users.
The features and the functions of the categories such as choosing a subject among various different subjects, or a topic, or some links in the application should be based on the age group and the understanding of the end-users that in this case are the students, so that it may help the students to gain deep and clear insights to a particular subject or topic.
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Create interactive design:
Before finalizing the configuration for the application many different variables like for example, the age of the end-users should be considered.
There may be a situation where the development company might be developing an education application for kids, in that case, the application that will be made should be playful, it should have shows related to the kids, there should be animated videos that can help the kids learn something. In another situation, if an education application is developed for corporate employees, the developers need to implant the vision of an expert with a professional design.
In order to hire an app developer, the company must take care of whether he/she will be able to meet the requirements of the target audience and keep them engaged or not.
Read the blog- The Dark and Bright Shades of Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education
A special post of a graphic designer can also be allotted for the same purpose. This segment of the application is crucial, it can decide the user interface of the application and it will make the application attractive and will also increase the overall productivity of the learning by making the application more informative and that too with minimal efforts.
That is why the design and appearance of the application are very important. Without a good design and a good user interface, the application can not sustain in the market.
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Keep the focus towards quality:
The developers need to pay attention to the quality of the content that will go up on the application. The functions and the tools should be relevant, to the point and simple.
Large paragraphs are often not written in these kinds of applications as the screens of the smartphones and tablets are small and it becomes hard to read long paragraphs on such a small screen. Android app development company has different page orientations from iOS app development companies.
There should be short and informative paragraphs that can convey the meaning in fewer words. Diagrams, graphs, and points should be used consistently wherever necessary, this will make any topic or the subject easy to understand, clear and easy to learn for the students.
If the content that goes up on the application is weak, or not optimized as per the users and the devices on which the application will work, there may be a lot of issues that the users might face when they use the application.
If the quality of the content on the application is maintained then the students will stay with the application, it may be possible that they refer the application to the people near them but if the application and its functions is weak, then it will be very hard for the students to understand any topic and they will eventually uninstall the application from their smartphones or their tablets.
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Making education more interesting:
To make the children understand and remember the details of every topic, learning has to be made fun and interactive.
Educational applications excel in this field but there is always room for improvement. Educational apps can involve tests, recreations, riddles, puzzles, etc to test the knowledge of the users. This will make their learning more intuitive and will help them to catch the facts easily.
Different points of reference can be utilized for the purpose of better catching power of the learners at different phases. This will provide a whole new experience regarding e-learning through apps. Several devices can also be used and games can be included between the lessons for learning based on performance.
Learning application development totally depends upon their users and thus it is an important task to do.
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Considering feedback:
Feedback and reviews are the basis for improvement. The constant feedback option may help the developers to inculcate interesting things in the app and remove irrelevant features from it.
Feedback consideration is a great tool when it comes to modification. The application must have a feature that requests users to give their valuable and genuine feedback for the purpose of enhancement of education.
The relevant feedback can then be used during the time of development of newer versions of the app. Also, in the field of education changes are vulnerable, feedback will help in regular updating of the app. This will create a positive impact in the mind of the users and help them to avail of the services of the application more and more.
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Quality of the content:
Devices nowadays come in various sizes and shapes. Some are small to fit in the palm while others are large. So, content must be precise and short.
This increases the level of readability of the users. The screen is small and thus long paragraphs must be avoided. To increase the content, usage of pictures, graphs, and diagrams is always a good idea.
This makes the topic more understandable and interesting. The quality of content must be kept high in order to publicize the educational application and get maximum registered users.
A mobile app development company plays a great role here as it has the responsibility of optimizing the content according to the situations and conditions of the web and do all modifications to increase its SEO and scale of readability.
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Testing the understanding of users:
For developing any kind of educational application, it is important for the developer to know the potential audience as well as their level of understanding.
They must be aware of the knowledge provided by the application and the amount of profit the users are getting from that knowledge. Also, the application should consist of the option of various categories such as subjects, topics, languages, etc so that the students can choose their area of interest and learn according to it.
Also, this feature will help in having a better understanding of the chosen topic. This makes the application much more interesting and easy to learn and gives an edge in the world of competitors.
Conclusion
The mobile app development company has shown a great contribution to increasing the interest of children through new and exciting learning methodologies.
They have always come up with innovative ideas to keep the competition in the market which has resulted in the increased interest of learners and transitively contribute towards national development. People are coming up with new ideas every day and proving all past ideologies and conventional methods of learning outdated.
