One of the most revolutionary contribution of technology towards the field of education is none other than the educational apps. It has allowed teachers and students to think out of the box. It changed how education is imparted and how learning is assessed.
With time, educational app development companies might come up with more miraculous ideas. In this blog, let us find out how far educational apps have succeeded in positively impacting the institution of education.
1. Simulate the phenomenons and processes around you
Teachers often have to deal with extremely unmotivated and bored pupils when explaining topics that are abstract or too difficult to comprehend. If that is the case, you might have seriously thought about engaging them by choosing the avant-garde.
You might have faced problems explaining to your students chromosome pairing taking place during the different phases of meiosis or describing the material dispersion in a prism or explaining the chemical bonds formed during a chemical reaction. What you can do at the most using conventional systems is, making use of a pictorial representation while you explain the concept. But still that is not a refined solution. These classes are still uninteresting for most of the students.
By educational app development, you can provide students with simulations and models corresponding to various topics. These interactive demonstrations will develop interest in the subject and allow them to approach learning through newer perspectives.
2. Provide a global reach
With educational apps, you can give your students the advantage of exposure to other cultures. For example, second language speech classes can be organized by collaborating with educational institutions in another country. From these classes, children can learn to speak a language by interacting with the native speakers. This is far better than the traditional method of learning a language by practising the grammar rules.
3. Use virtual manipulatives
From the old days itself, physical manupulatives like the abacus, helped in grasping skills like problem solving, reasoning, understanding the connection between things etc. Virtual manipulative apps are now widely available to aid your children in learning difficult concepts, relationship between objects, variables etc. Geoboard is one such popular manipulative, that helps kids explore the basic geometrical concepts such as perimeter, area etc.
4. Probes and sensors in education
Apps are used along with sensors and probes to measure data, such as the pH, temperature, position of an object etc. Sensors can collect these data and communicate them to your smart device. These set of values are instantly turned into real time graphs or tables as per choice. Ideas such as energy, mass etc. and natural processes such as weather, photosynthesis, cellular respiration etc. are better learned by the students this way.
Recommended read: How to be Successful at Educational App Development?
5. Better evaluation methods
Traditionally, evaluation meant nothing more than asking curriculum related questions and obtaining predefined answers. Students learned definitions, but did not have any mentionable or practical knowledge about the essence of a concept. There were good grades, but there were not enough understanding. Through educational app development you can benefit from various methods of assessment, whereby you can check whether the actual concept is clear to the student.
Another benefit of using apps for assessment is that it provides real-time communication between the students and teachers. Instant sharing of assignments and grades along with simultaneous guidance are features unique to this system. A teacher can track the method used by a student and the time consumption for doing each individual task. This will help them to analyse the exact topics that the student finds difficult and assist them by providing more examples and explanations.
6. Using the multimedia
The technology can be utilized as an effective educational tool. Multimedia is more attention holding than learning from the regular printed text or listening to the teacher. Students nowadays are already accustomed to information sharing through pictures, videos, animation, podcasts and other various information formats.
7. E-books
Applying e-books into the educational system will be a breakaway movement. Future students could bid their backpacks goodbye forever. There will be no more carrying a lot of heavy books around. Digital textbooks will replace paper textbooks in smart schools. These electronic textbooks also include supplementary visualizations that aids in better understanding.
8. Epistemic games
These are role playing games, where the students are given specific roles or tasks imitating real-world situations. They have to provide well thought-out solutions for confronted problems and during the process they learn about various important concepts in the real life. Epistemic games focus on developing creative and innovative ways of thinking. It also helps in acquiring real life skills and gives exposure to various value systems.
