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2021’s Cost & Feature Analysis To Create An Educational App

by Lori Caricofe Marketing Consultant

They say a dictionary is a language in reminiscence, and learning is a window into the past. But, it’s lagging behind both in approach and context.

For instance, e-learning apps — they are mammoth available in the market but scarce in classrooms. Also, mobiles are portrayed as cheat-devices, distractors, and addictive gadgets and restricted from the classrooms.

And, that is distressing, given the potential education apps hold for learners and schoolings — inspiration and time for mentors, motivation and support for learners, transparency for parents and high ROI for farsighted businesses.

Once Benjamin Franklin said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best return”.

So, if the above quote holds true and blue, education lane is like burning the candle at both ends to the ROI (Return On Investment). Are you looking for proof?

Let’s take at present the average age of successful entrepreneurs which is much older than you think. And, it’s not far that it will be cut into two. The precedents are already there. With easy access to the right tools and knowledge, kids step out from their classroom as a millionaire — merely at 15!

So, rather than discussing disruption, it’s high time to align with the best app development company and unfurl intricacies of creating a groundbreaking educational app.

After all, thinking about creating an awesome learning app is a promising move for future.

And, herein we are going to help you hunt down answers to questions of your interests:

What lion share does educational app capture?
What is the prerequisite of design and product excellence?
What will be the development options?
How to monetize educational apps?

What Lion Share Does Educational App Capture?

According to Statista, the e-learning market globally is predicted to eclipse 37.8 billion U.S dollars in 2020. The educational app numbers approaches approximately to 936 million downloads presently — 470 million on Apple app store and 466 million on Google play store by the Q1 of 2020.

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To offer a tip of it’s diversity, here’s a brief description of product categorisation by Edsurge. Educational software usually funnels down to five categories.

School Operations:

This category is basically designed for use by higher designated officials like principals and school administrators to manage schools and educational process participants.

Curriculum Products:

This category involves help with teaching concepts and skills. Curriculum products ask for compliance, especially with the transformation in Common Core Standards.

Post-Secondary:

The post-secondary category aims at learners, admins, professors, and also parents involved in post-secondary learning surrounding.

Teacher Requirements:

This array of educational software helps the teacher with classroom-related activities like lesson and lecture planning, classroom management, grading system and a lot of other stuff.

The Left Out:

This category sheath the complimentary K-12 curriculum products or anything else related with the education aisle.

To your surprise, you will be amazed to see the distinctiveness in architecture and content of numerous e-learning mobile app:

Educational games
Subject-oriented learning apps
Multi-purpose learning apps
Learning apps for preschoolers and toddlers
Management learning apps

Taking into consideration the objective, the app varies from instructive (drill-and-practice) with the help of experimentation and discovery to constructive ones, in regards to using Bloom’s taxonomy of learning to write practical learning objectives. Many among them aim at knowledge and skillset, while others focus on collaboration and learning and teaching support, and the list is never-ending.

Keep in mind; the consumer market covers several needs — from kids to teenagers, specially-abled kids app, corporate training tools and what else you can think of.

But the number and diversity of learning apps are not surely assuring you quality. Indeed, the first generation of mobile learning app has shown there is a behemoth area of advancement.

So,without any further ado let these insights guide you through the education app development aisle.

#Step 1: Craft For Quality and Excellence

Firstly, integrating an engineering-style and problem-solution thinking to complicated domains like education is a big challenge. But, knowing how to align the app’s design and use the processes of learning and developing requires proper understanding of the learning science with the right assistance from an experienced app development company to power decisions that matter.

Here’s Seven Vertical Of Creating An Educational App To Keep In Mind

In an e-learning app architecture, these seven dimension transform the product roadmap:

Communication: Single/Bi-directional information flow
Public: Open to public / confine to a specific group
Identity: Information adjusted based on user identity
Temporal: Asynchronous/Synchronous user interaction
Transaction: Potential of in-app purchases
Location: The piece of information or feature set customized for user location
Multiplicity: The app solely / a group of other participants

The Crucial Shafts Of E-learning App Design

Do you think content is enough?

No, it’s not! Designing the right learning flow is equally important. Have you ever wondered what makes an educational app truly “learning” by design and nature?

Humans quickly learn best when they:

Socially Interact with others in high-quality approaches
Actively involve with curious heads
Engage with the intuitive learning materials
Have meaningful experiences

In the end, the mobile app developers that create an excellent educational app to promote active, highly engaging, meaningful, and socially interactive learning are the winners. And you can too!

#Step 2: Know Your Development Choices

Understanding a ballpark for the time and cost to create an educational app makes it a lot easier to scrutinize the budget before heading starting with the development process. But simultaneously two similar projects can gradually vary in cost.

You just simply can’t assign features a set price and expect the price to be the same across every project. The research advises developing just one screen of a mobile app taking about a week with a full-time employee (FTE). This consists of planning, development, and then testing and final approval, so a mobile app is developed in two months.

The trusted app development company offer a ballpark of cost by multiplying the hourly salary of FTE with the time taken. And, that’s excluding other overhead expenses like developers license for app creation tools.

So, when you pen down the rough sketch for creating an educational app, the below listed parameters are imperatives. Have a look:

Registration/ Log-in
Instructional Overlay
User Profile/Dashboard
Search Filters
Push Notifications
Social Media Integrations
Database
Offline Mode
Motivational Feature Set
Communication and Interaction Module
Audio/Video Streaming

2021’s Generation Technologies For Educational App

The latest editions in technology stack and approaches have made their way to educational apps.

Want to know how?

Continue reading!

AR Captivates All Senses

Whether you agree or not, Augmented Reality amplifies real-world experiences. Be it an amusement park or an art gallery; AR technologies hold the potential to uphold any situation, location, surrounding or even venture to a totally new level.

AR is gradually transforming the way people interact and learn with mobile devices.

Besides, the biggest reason mobile app developers love it is because ideas for AR are almost everywhere — just have a look around. Explore night from a new aspect with a Star Chart, or go to the woods with a Leafsnap, or feel free to learn new languages on the go with Google Translate.

There are also tools for mentors and students available on EON Creator AVR to establish their own AR & VR content. Students can visualize any topic on subjects varying from history to astronomical science. Teachers can create curriculum and monitor, assess and correct students at the weak points with the help of the app.

Artificial Intelligence Is The Key To Accelerate Learning Capability

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You must be wondering, “is your teaching about to be disrupted”?

Yes, it is. But in a better way.

With the debut of AI, every aspect of education is revolutionizing, from curriculum development all to assessment, smart algorithms are adjusted according to the learner’s abilities. .

No more averages, everyone gets the best.

As the value of AI technology starts to penetrate the customer/user/learner experience, replying to customer demands will become a decisive force, with an average of one in three citing customer demands as a significant reason for AI adoption, approximately for 50% of the dwelling from education organizations.

Lastly, Education apps are the forerunner in AI adoption with services and enablers having 5–10% lower adoption rates.

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So, undoubtedly, AI creates mammoth value for the organization as a tool for assessment and reviews, and as a tool for educational apps. Moreover, the passionate mobile app developers offer an ideal blend of intelligence, for instance, a distributed learning strategy aiming to integrate live classroom methods with the right virtual technologies consisting of virtual facilitators, intelligent tutor, augmented reality and other exclusive features.

The Gaming Element For Non-Gaming Context

Motivation is quite crucial in learning and education. Still, it often comes with challenges in conventional classrooms, like challenges in games were getting some arbitrary value or reaching the next level have little to no practical value.

Fortunately, the primary elements of gaming and learning to eclipse sometime — especially for setting objectives, developing a strategy, and getting rewards are the common things. And, it’s not just for kids app, gamification has been significant in employee performance, customer engagement, and also crowdsourcing initiatives.

For better understanding, let’s take an example of a location-based mobile app for orientation at Webster University. The app notifies freshmen on a scavenger hunt with the help of a smartphone. And, with customizable treks and challenges, it’s informative and interactive, in short, a great alternative to monotonous handouts.

Streaming Going Viral In The Corporate Learning

Presently, corporate learning is inclined towards education ‘in the flow of work’. Also, Josh Bersin said, “the connection between corporate learning and video/audio streaming services is not anymore a far-sighted future”.

Modern learning methods transform a series of playlist and channels that you subscribe to and get customized AI-powered recommendations, similar to Netflix. Businesses grab the value of micro-learning and in return, provide their own video-learning platforms.

#Step 3: Monetize Your Educational App

When a reliable mobile app developer creates your excellent educational app, monetization takes time. For beginners, the Free model is perfect for alluring clients. Simply, because of the plentiful availability of the apps of the same category, that’s the only option available.

The minimum you can do is offer a free trial to get to know your app. But, creating reliable revenue streams is an unskippable aspect of app success, so weigh your choices.

Freebie: The paid features are where mostly free educational apps scale new heights. You cannot get VC injections forever. So, better to think of some compelling features outside your MVP (Minimum Viable Product) that users will happily pay for.
Commissions: If you offer a platform for user-generated content, you can always change an interest for a course viewing or a commission for posting a paid course.
Subscriptions: A monthly subscription is a popular choice for monetizing an e-learning app. Alternatively, introduce numerous user plans for access to different functionalities (free/VIP/premium/pro).
Advertisement Revenue: In-App ads are bothersome so it’s advisable to use them in moderation. Ensure you know the ad policy for your potential target users, especially if you are creating it for toddlers and kids.

Advertising towards children is rightly limited by strict rules and regulations like Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the advertising industries own self formulated regulation through the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU).

In-App Purchases: Providing paid consumables within an app sometimes can be a red flag, especially with kids apps, as many parents find it daunting to safeguard their wallets.

Also, app stores offer parents guidance and needed tools against the strategy. So, gracefully offering users a choice to opt-out will provide you with more credit than being confined and manipulative.

Paid Downloads: The other way round is charge once for the app’s download. Paid model is only viable if you aim at the mammoth size market. Keep in mind to offer a free-trial as no one enjoy a pig in the poke.

Final Thought!

Although the pandemic has taken its levy on everybody, there is no more need to be a hostage to the situation. But, with mobile app developers, it’s worth continuing to funnel down new opportunities and optimally use the situation to craft new projects and ideas.

Pay attention to unskippable factors before you align with one:

Work Portfolio: Analyze and evaluate the team’s portfolio and experience with the latest emerging technology stack. Do they dwell with enough expertise in educational app development?
Don’t Fall For Cheap Prices: For sure, the right educational app development can’t be a cheap thing. Proficiency and accuracy lead its way for high quality with a price that’s worth the investment. So, find the golden mean!

Turnkey Solutions: There is no use of hiring an army of professionals to create an educational app. A trusted and innovative app development company is enough with experience in offering a distinctive array of services.