There was a time when people need to walk miles for gaining education through school (only as per our parents), but in today’s time education is not as strenuous as it used to be. The current generation sometimes doesn’t even need to go to school and can take lessons anywhere and anytime. There have been huge innovations in the education market and have become a source of business while providing quality education at very affordable rates to the people.
There are many reputed enterprises which are investing in smart education such as Samsung, Dell, and Fujitsu. It has been expected that in the coming 4 years the smart education or e-learning market will grow by over $46 billion.
Some important stats regarding e-learning & smart education:
- The worldwide value of eLearning market would be valued at $243 billion.
- 65% of tutors support open educational resources.
- 92% e-learning market worldwide by 2022.
- It is 3rd most popular App Store category.
The most popular trends in e-learning are gamification, foreign language learning apps, programming learning apps, & digital education.
In this article, we would be guiding you on how to develop an educational app, how much will it cost, what would be essential features & functionalities, and much more.
Educational Apps Types
The first thing you need to decide is what type of educational app you want to develop. Educational apps have been divided into two main categories; educational apps for teachers & for students. However, these two are further divided into different categories.
Educational Apps for Teachers
The educational app developed for a teacher is not as such highly customized as it is for students. The aim of teaching educational apps is to make the teaching process more convenient. There are many apps available for tracking student reports and sharing them with their parents, so the parents will get complete info of their students’ education track. The teachers can also schedule classes through the teachers’ app. There are many different types of teachers educational apps as well.
Want to create an e-learning app? Know the complete detail in this article.
Educational Gaming Apps
Many teachers are using fun & interesting ways of providing education to students. For e.g. there is an app named Kahoot on which the teachers can upload questions as well as their answers. Thereafter, the app will convert those Q & As into interesting games. Another example is Monster Math by which the teachers can provide mathematics education through interactive games.
Progress Tracking Apps
There are many different apps by which the teachers can track the progress of students and also share them with their parents. Seesaw is such an application. Parents can check their kids’ report and track their progress. The students can also share their achievements or other work on this app. Another app Addito is able to manage grades as well as the attendance of the students. On Addito, the teachers can also make timetables.
Learning Material Apps
The teachers can also opt for cloud-based apps on which they can upload the learning material which would be easily accessible by the students. The solutions are best for both learners and tutors. The best example of such an app is Schoology. It doesn’t only allow sharing files but also collecting notes, highlighting important lines etc. Tech giant Google has also launched such an educational app – Google Classroom. It is a web-based application by Google which comes with many features such as using Google Docs, making a copy for each student, or creating folders in Google Drive to manage all things easily.
Educational Apps for Students
After teachers, the only remaining entity in education is students. The apps built for students should be easy to use so that every student would be able to use them without any hassle. The different types of apps available for students are:
Language Learning Apps:
Knowing multiple languages has become a new trend and many students are following this trend to gain a new skill. The language learning doesn’t give notes and a huge roster of words and rules but provide interactive games and activities so that the user can learn a new language with interest. The best example is Duolingo. Duolingo provides interactive tests with questions in the form of written, sound, pictures etc. There are many different languages offered by Duolingo. Another app, Memrise provides short videos that user can watch to learn new words.
Kids Learning App:
You can’t forget kids while creating educational apps. Today’s generation spends a lot of time playing games or watching videos on YouTube. There is no positive outcome of that. However, kids learning app can change this. Developing an app for the kids’ course is really a great idea. You can take the reference of Poptropica English which provides various mysteries to solve and at the same time kids also learn English. Fish School is another such app to learn numbers, letters, shapes, colours, etc.
Online Courses App:
Teenagers and adults have a curiosity to learn new skills and henceforth they opt for different courses. There are many such universities and colleges which are ready to collaborate with these technical platforms. You must have heard about Coursera, a famous website with an app to learn courses from esteemed universities. Recently, Udemy also got popularity for providing sources on many different topics.
Exam Preparation Apps:
Students can also prepare for competitive exams as well as their routine exams through different apps. Some of the popular apps are ExamPrep & GradeUp. These apps come with interesting Mock tests, flashcard tests, MCQs, etc. There are many students who prepare through these for competitive exams for higher studies. Some of the popular tests are for Medical/Engineering, Law, CAT/MBA, GMAT, GRE etc.
How to Develop an E-learning app?
The first step in developing an educational app is to decide what features and functionalities you want to implement on the app. The features would be different for students and teachers app. The features can also be categorized as basic or advanced. The basic features are for the MVP version of your app while the advanced features should be implemented when your app gets popularity.
Here are a few important features of Educational App for Students:
Student Login & Sign Up
A student should be able to sign-up through many different options such as through mail id & password or contact no. & password. If you want to enhance the UX then you can also implement Forgot password option in which the password would be recovered through OTP on mobile or mail.
Search
The students should be able to find different courses, languages, tests, books, chapters, subjects, etc. on your app. For this, you have to implement search functionality. Elasticsearch is the best search functionality you can implement.
Managing Profile
The students should be able to manage their profile or dashboards by which they can also track their progress. They would be able to manage their contact numbers, account, etc.
Choice of Course
The students would be able to enrol for different courses whether paid or free. They will get all the details of the course such as topic covered, timings etc.
Payments
If there are courses on your app which aren’t free and students have to pay for them then you need to integrate a reliable & secure payment gateway. Some of the best payment gateways are Paypal, Braintree, and Stripe.
Menu
The students can check the contents of the course, upcoming lessons, by the Menu feature. It is also helpful to track progress.
Push Notifications
Push Notifications are required to remind users for the daily lessons, new course available, etc. Also, if a student stops using your app then you can retain those users by push notifications. Hence, push notifications are helpful in increasing the revenue of your app.
Features of Educational App for Teachers
Teacher Login & Sign-Up
Like Students, teachers also need to login in the app. For teachers, you can provide login & sign up through contact number, e-mail & password. Forgot password would be also necessary here.
Managing Students
A teacher’s prime responsibility is to manage his/her students. For this, they can check the roster of their students with their details.
Teaching Courses
An educational app has a sense when there are courses on it. For this, the teachers would be able to create courses easily. They should be able to upload images, videos, PDFs, and other material in their courses.
Tests
A course is successful when the learner can gain good marks in the test of it. Henceforth, the teacher should be able to take tests of their learners through the app. The tests should be objective as well as subjective and are time-based.
Push Notifications
Teachers should be notified when the tests are done and new students enrol for their course.
Successful Educational Apps
Learning a new language has never been so easier. Duolingo is a widely recognized app to learn a new language such as French, Spanish, German, Portuguese etc. It offers a skill tree of varied lessons in which there are multiple-choice questions tests which also involves listening, and vocal exercises. Most questions have a comment thread where users can discuss a particular question in detail. The service also has community features that let you connect with other people who are learning the same language you are. Learning on Duolingo is completely free of cost however you can get some advanced features on the paid app.
Khan academy is a non-profit educational site & app that provides free video lectures, tutorials & interactive exercises. The lessons are for distance learning but gave a feeling of the classroom. Through the Khan Academy site, the teachers can monitor the progress of students. Also, there are no-ads on the site, hence the student never distracts from the learning. The content quality is very good and there are varieties of courses to choose from. It has been funded by Bill Gates charitable foundation.
There are more than 130,000 courses available on Udemy app which are learnt by millions of learners. But, it is an online course marketplace not a complete learning management system. If you want to create your own course, you can easily create and sell it on Udemy. If you want to learn any course then still you can easily learn it on Udemy. The typical price of courses is roughly $12 – $50 but can go as high as $199.99. The best thing about Udemy is, if you feel that the course is not up to the mark or relevant then you can also get a refund (not always).
How to make money through an educational app?
Well, if you are investing a huge amount of money then it is obvious that you must consider some revenue through it. An educational app can also be a great source of revenue if you provide all necessary features, great UI/UX, and a good learning environment on the apps. Here are a few ways of making money through an educational app: Freemium model
As the name indicates, a Freemium model is the combination of two different models, these are “free” and “Premium”. In the freemium model, the app is free of cost. The users can download the app without paying any money but can access its premium features by paying an amount. In simple words, the users can use the free version of your app or on a trial basis but if they like the app they like the app then they can pay for the premium features as well.
Paid apps
If you feel that you have developed an application which is worth paying for, you can set a price to it and make it a paid app. The best thing about this is that you will earn money whenever a user downloads it. However, you have to give some percentage to the corresponding app store. But you should give careful thinking over it because a user doesn’t easily get ready to pay for an app.
In-app Advertising
This is the most common way of making money. In your mobile apps too, you can incorporate apps to make money. Most of the apps with in-app advertising are free of cost but indicated the presence of ad pop-ups. To get ads on your app, firstly you need to make your app popular. The number of downloads of your app indicates the popularity of your app. When your app gets popular, then you can choose an advertising network, and implement its SDK on the app.
Get complete info of app monetization strategies through this article.
Cost for developing the educational app
The cost of developing an app depends upon its features, design, and platform as well. The backend Development can cost nearly $30-40 thousands while iOS, Android or Flutter development can cost 40-50 thousand dollars each. This is the cost when the hourly rate is $25/hr.
Why Amplework Software?
Amplework Software is having the required experience in developing on-demand apps or education apps. We are having a team of expert mobile app developers who will turn your idea on the mobile screen. We aren’t just giving reasonable rates but a free consultation as well. Reach us now.
