An educational app is a powerful learning tool. But, it is very unfortunate that most educational app development companies don’t consider the importance of participating those people who understand students and the ways they learn better – Teachers. Good graphics, programming and design are not enough to satisfy the purposes behind educational app development. Taking expert guidance from educators during app development would be very beneficial in meeting the goals set.

Teachers are educational psychologists in themselves. They are in a direct position to evaluate and influence students.Utilizing the experience and knowledge of the teachers are very vital in planning, designing, and creating educational materials appropriate for the student’s ability at a definite age.

Here are 12 major areas where engaging educators can help to re-create the conditions favourable for learning.

1. Ensuring the app is Curriculum Based

The instructional design should follow all the particulars specified under the state’s school curriculum standards. Teachers know best about what the curriculum looks like.

So development companies should work side by side with school faculties in an attempt to apply the various curriculum specifications into educational apps.

2. Deciding Objectives

Teachers should be the ones who decide what skill sets need to be developed through the learning app.

They can set goals for developing and honing skills including cognitive, verbal, motor etc.

3. Deciding the Quantity, Modes, and Methods of Providing information

Teachers can help to obtain suitable contents for the app. They will give you a fine idea about what was learned before and what continues from the previous years that has to be recalled since acquiring new skill sets will be based on previously acquired skills.

They can suggest the right mix of illustrations, examples, audios, videos and other forms of supplements and reinforcements. They can propose what needs a repetition and what needs to be just mentioned.

4. Ensuring the Content is apt For the user’s Cognitive Ability

Cognitive development is progressive with age and occurs in four different stages. It is very important to pick the right educational activities that facilitate learning processes appropriate to the age.

There might be also special education requirements. Teachers can regulate the degree of complexity adequately and simplify concepts for better understanding.

5. Deciding the Time Allocation and Importance given to Each Concept

The time allotted for mastery of each individual concept should be analogous to the priority given to the specific subject matter. There should be the right mix of learning and entertainment in educational apps.

6. Selecting Appropriate Content that Respects the Individuality and Beliefs of the User

The app’s content should not hurt the beliefs and values of the user. It is a very difficult job, since these features vary by locality, religion, social class and even between individuals.

Teachers can have a better insight about the various customs and beliefs of their pupil. So they are in a better place to decide the content of the app.

7. Ensuring Adherence to School and Classroom Rules

The rules and regulations in each school are different. The educational settings, faculties, tools, and facilities available varies a great deal.

Proper communication with the school departments and staffs is inevitable to tune the app to abide by the particular directives of a school.

8. Deciding the Pace at Which Instructions are Given

Students will be familiar with particular teaching strategies, learning styles and instructional pace that depends on various factors such as the curriculum, schools attended, country of schooling etc.

All these factors should be accommodated into the designing criteria of the app by discussing with the concerned staff members of each subject.

9. Ensuring Social Skills and Life Skills are also Developed

Education should involve enabling students to acquire the social and life skills that are valuable in life. Co-operation, socializing, manners, participation, involvement etc. are some key skills that need to be focused.

Must read: How much does it Cost to Build an Educational App for Kids?

10. Cultivating Moral Values and Ensuring Character Development

Emotional and behavioral development are also fields, posing a challenge to educational app development where a teacher’s direction can be of great help.

The characters, themes, music and every other element that goes into the app should not be disturbing or unethical in nature. It shouldn’t hurt the moral values and induce deviant behaviour in children.

11. Deciding Testing and Evaluation Methods

In the educational process, apart from the instructional theories, and teaching strategies there is also something else that is of core importance- the right assessment method. The learning outcomes should be properly tested and evaluated for meeting its objectives.

Since teachers are experienced hands in assessing hundreds of students with individual differences in intelligence, they can guide towards implementing a proper assessment method for applications too.

12. Deciding the Feedback Method

Teachers can advise how to give effective feedback to students. They can figure out what types of feedback and rewards will motivate students and will keep them interested in the app.

mobile app development

Also Check: Latest Updated Educational Apps Directory List

Books have given way to educational apps these days. The popularity of educational apps is on the rise as most students see them as an easy and convenient mode to learn. As a result, many companies have come forward to provide educational app development services, making it very difficult to choose from.

The best way to choose an educational app development company for building apps for you is by ensuring that they have the following traits:

Experience

It’s always best to choose a company that has fared well in the educational app development field. They will also have an eye for the latest updates happening in the app world and build the apps accordingly.

Easy to Communicate

A good app development company involves you in the development process right from the start while considering your feedbacks. This allows you to see what’s happening at each stage of development and suggest changes, if needed. Also, the company must have a mode for easy communication to attend to the queries and concerns of their customers.

Provides Quality Content

Since users of educational apps are mostly children, it is necessary to ensure that the content of the apps are appropriate and simple, making it easy for the students to understand.

App Design that Suits Younger Audience

Remember, the app is for kids and therefore, the different elements of the app must be colourful and appealing with interesting sound effects. In short, the best educational app development company must be able to think from a child’s perspective to understand their needs and act accordingly.

All-in-One Solution

If an educational app development company is a one stop package with all steps involving educational app development, you must definitely go for it. When we say app development, it isn’t just about coding. It also involves the design, usability and testing of the app.

Worth the Money

Remember, an experience service doesn’t mean that the app the build is of good quality. At the same time, if you go for best educational app development company/services with cheapest rates, again, you won’t get the desired quality of the app. Therefore, analyse well before you make a choice.

Always select an app development company that understands your needs and considers your opinions while building an app just like how you wanted.

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.

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.

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.

Read also:

How to be Successful at Educational App Development?

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.

https://www.redbytes.in/educational-app-development/Learning has become easier, smarter and interesting with the advancement in technology. One can either be specific or generic regarding what they need to learn. Today, the most perfect medium to grab knowledge is Internet. Mobile applications have become a trend in today’s world to acquire more knowledge.

Educational app development is given more focus in mobile app development as it is having good demand in the market. Many reputed schools now promotes the use of iPhones and iPads. This can greatly help the child’s education as they experience the fun element in learning. Educational app development is a long term relationship with the customers and it is comparatively free from risk.

Children make use of apps mainly for entertainment, educational purpose and to play downloaded games. While choosing apps for children, parents often consider the educational apps.

When we decide to develop an educational app, we need to think more . It is better to use one’s own imagination to make the app attractive. Here are some of the tips to make the app successful:

Make the concept clear and original

As it is an educational app, focus on the educational value of app. Smart Speller is an educational app which helps the children to spell words, enrich vocabulary, improve their various skills such as visual, language and pronunciation problem solving skills and motor skills. Creating story app, increases kid’s engagement in the app. Pictures and sounds in Smart Speller app is original that too with high quality.

Make the app as reusable asset

One should use all their efforts to make the app reusable. Reusable assets can help to reduce the development time of future applications.

Multi-platform solution

In order to develop multi-platform solution, one should start from a less competitive market. In case of educational app development, android and windows market is more preferable. When competition is stronger, the chances of success will also be reduced.

Test the app with audience

In case of educational app development, audiences will be children. We can give app to the child and get direct and immediate feedback regarding the app without even releasing it.

Introduce a smarter plan

For succeeding, these are the steps to be followed:

1. Always start with the development of prototype

2. Next step is to start the process of usability testing

3. Third step is to produce a graphic design

4. Fourth step is the application development

Recommended read: Things to Keep In Mind While Developing Educational Apps

Among these steps, most important one is usability testing. Pleasing story, good graphics and pleasing sounds are not just enough. One should also make sure that the app is having a child-friendly navigation interface. It is advisable not to overload the screen with social plug-ins, banners, menu buttons or ads.

Scalability of the solution

Creating different language versions can be the scalability tool. Creating multilingual solution is a simple way to increase the number of downloads thereby increasing the profit.

Implement language localization

Audience often prefer every details of their product to be known in their own native language. Co-operation with native speakers is the best solution for the purpose of language localization. It involve translators that help to translate the descriptions of application. One can use text to speech engine for reading the text content louder. On the android market, one can easily localize the name and description of the product.

Continuous improvement is very much necessary for every product. Make changes and improve the app as per the feedback of audience. When it comes to educational app, parents and children both have equal importance to give feedback.

Also Check: Latest Updated Educational Apps Directory List