Every young parent is excited about sending their kids to smart schools. We all wish to provide our kids with better education regardless of our financial status. But how many of us know enough about what kind of education systems and what kind of education environments are prevalent today? After a comprehensive comparison, there are 7 things that smart schools are found to be doing better than ordinary schools. But, before going into that let’s consider three fundamental shifts, which transformed learning environments brought about.

The three types of learners in modern learning environments

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Social Learner: Learning is more of a social activity now.

Autonomic Learner: The dependency of students on teachers have decreased to a great extent, especially with the advent of education app development, to become more or less self-directed.

Inquisitive Learner: Students are more curious to explore into the unknown than just cramming and passing examinations.

Things smart schools will do better

1. Goal Oriented Development: Just like during education app development, modern classrooms work their way up based on previously set goals. They are always on some mission that could aid development of various skills in students. Smart schools conduct community conversations that helps them in setting various goals that are to be achieved. Some examples include creating great learning experiences, community involvement, overall growth etc.

2. Powerful Learning Experiences: When we all learned back during the old days using the traditional approach, the only time that we had to be involved in any learning activities was once when we were in our classrooms or when we had to do homework. The focus of education has now shifted to anytime learning and anywhere learning.

Technology can create powerful and amazing learning experiences for students. Technologies such as the internet, learning apps, and other innovative resources create better learning opportunities for students. For e.g., now education app development companies create apps that enable students to communicate, collaborate and share learning materials and assignments 24/7 year round.

3. Introduction to Productive Learning Environments: With the aid of new technologies, teachers can now plan and allocate resources in better ways. For e.g., if students need some lessons or resources for a longer time period the teachers can include rotation and flex models, which delivers a part of the active time via online. This will in turn increase productivity.

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4. Better Student Profiles: With the use of smart technologies, it is possible to save each students’ academic history for future reference. No matter whether you need a progress report from a year ago or a remark made one month ago, all are accessible at the tip of your fingers.

Teachers, parents, and the students themselves can compare the progress that has been made and decide where they need to put an extra effort. Also, a student-centric and personalized approach can be formulated based on the capabilities and interest areas of individual students.

5. Aid Growth: Next gen schools will provide knowledge map for each student, where their mastery of skills are portrayed. They can be awarded with badges, tags and other recognition signs for their respective accomplishments. The progress to each level can be based on acquisition of the required recognition signs.

6. Leverage Teacher Talent: Like a student profile, every teacher will have a teacher’s profile too. The strengths and weaknesses of the teachers will become trasnparent through these comprehensive profiles. Apart from that the roles of teachers have shown a massive shift from being a dictator to a facilitator in the modern classrooms. Online classes allow schools to take advantage of the services of renowned lecturers and specialists in various fields from anywhere in the world.

7. Social Connections: Until recently, parents did not have a direct role in their kid’s education. New gen schools promote active community participation. They involve parents and even family members apart from peers for encouraging community based learning.

Also Check: Latest Updated Educational Apps Directory List

There are more people in the world who own a mobile phone than there are people who own a toothbrush. A two year old knows how to hold an iPhone properly and how to lock/unlock it. Mobile apps became the most successful innovation in the field of mobile technology and creative minds found its implementation in the field of education as well.

As learning app are getting in demand, new ones are flooding all the major digital stores everyday. Any parent or concerned teacher could easily be confused about choosing one. Hence, there is much importance in acquiring the skill needed for selecting the proper learning app for your kid and this skill depends greatly on understanding the common features of good learning apps.

The most important thing that an educational app for kids should have is the fun factor. Kids should be able to accomplish tasks and learning activities without even realizing that they are learning a thing or two! Even when it seems that an app is engaging in nature and your kid wants to use it again, one cannot conclude that the app could be educative. Being attractive and being educative are two totally different concepts.

This infographic lists 12 features every good learning apps for kids should possess.

features of good learning apps

Also Check : Latest Updated Educational Apps Directory List

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.

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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.

Educational apps are gaining prominence day by day, and a lot of schools are now seriously into developing kids educational apps.

Before moving directly into the cost estimate of an average educational app, it is important to get acquainted with the factors that affect cost of a project.

E-learning App Cost

Is Every App Educational as it is Claimed?

Not really. Educational apps are not meant to be just a showy display or a mere kid’s mobile game with a lot of entertainment extravaganza. Though the fun element is something crucial to the success of an kids educational apps the people behind its development should know where exactly they should draw the line. The objective of the app should not be obscured by the overflow of non educational stuffs that go into the app.
An ideal educational app for kids will be a balanced amalgam of fun with education, a treat to the kids hiding the learning burden.

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Educational app should contribute to all areas of a child’s development including creative, analytical, physical, social, and emotional development. All the phases in the app’s development should be continued taking advice from specialists such as a child psychologist, a child interaction specialist, a creative designer, a teacher and so on, when necessary. Each of the app elements should be designed taking into consideration the psychology of how kids learn.

Important Features of a Good Educational App

All beneficial educational app for kids will have several indispensable characters. Some are:

  • Short and simple apps.
  • No unnecessary distractions such as ads, pop-ups, links, social media, etc.
  • Adults control the levels in the app/ Locked menus and settings.
  • Speech included in aid of kids who are not yet fluent readers.
  • Music with a mute button.
  • Minimum number of buttons to reduce unintended actions.
  • Advancement should be flowing and mostly linear. It shouldn’t require kids to jump to and fro between pages. If that’s the case, they may lose focus easier.
  • Appropriate feedback should be given. Proper encouragement for incorrect answers is as important as positive feedbacks for achievements.

Importance of UX in a Kid’s App

When making an kids educational app, it is not enough that you focus on the graphics, sounds, and story. The picture is a whole lot bigger.

Designing a kid-friendly user interface that will not distract the kid’s attention, but keep them interested in the app is of prime importance. As it is mentioned earlier, the number of buttons made available on the screen should be limited and distraction elements such as social plugin, banners etc. should be avoided. This is because generally, kid’s are of the habit of touching everywhere on the screen. Accessibility of the buttons that are not strictly part of the app can be restricted to adults alone, by using specific unlock gestures or the double-tap-unlock method.

The Cost Factor

The cost of developing any kind of mobile app is just the same as developing for the web. There is nothing easy or cost saving about building a mobile app as some may believe.

The most basic apps with standard UI components and custom graphics such as a calculator or a small utility app can cost you between $ 1K to 10K.

What determines the cost factor greatly is the amount of time and effort that is invested in building the app.
If you want the same app to be attractive and more functional with interactive design, innovative methods of task completion, cloud services and customization features, the cost could shoot up to $2K to $25K. This means, the more complex the app is, the more you will be required to invest.

Other than complexity and app design, three important aspects that may affect the overall cost of production are the following:

  • Platform: Cost can vary depending on the platform you choose to use i.e., whether you want single platform (iOS, Android, Windows) or cross-platform app development.
  • The app development company or individual developer (Freelancer) whom you choose to work with: Based on this aspect, the costs may vary widely. So it is important to choose the right application development company for your development needs. The problem with hiring freelance service is that you should have a decent knowledge about the technology used and the workflow. Otherwise, you will be risking the success of your project.
  • Geography of your app development partner: The location of the developing company/developer has a dramatic effect on the cost of your project. Outsourcing is a common strategy taken in countries of the first world to drop app development expenditure. In hourly rates, development cost in a country like India or Pakistan can be $10-20/hour, whereas the US development companies charge between 120 to 160 dollars per hour. In the case of freelancing, cost in India and Pakistan usually range between $5 to $15 per hour and US at $150 per hour.