What Are The Required Features Of An Education Mobile App?
Technostacks
Coronavirus was declared a global and world-wide pandemic in March 2020, resulting in border closure, travel bans, temporary shutting downs of offices or permitting work from home, restriction in social gatherings, and limiting the crowd at public places, and many more. Covid-19 has changed the way how things were pursued in all the sectors, and education is not an exception.
As schools were shut down during the pandemic and the fear of the spread of the COVID-19 has changed the global education system. Both schools, as well as universities across the globe, have moved to online/ Virtual classrooms. This scenario has made e-learning and remote education apps a preferred choice for institute authorities and parents and guardians considering the pupils’ safety.
Thanks to technological advancements where distance/ remote education is as effective as physically attending the school. The education system has embraced technology, and hence with the help of educational apps, teachers and students can easily interact and engage with each other seamlessly.
As social distancing becomes the new norm, there has been a high demand for educational apps’ production and availability. Having said that, the distinguishing features of Educational Mobile Apps plays an essential role in offering the best learning experience.
List of must-have features of an Education App
Screen Sharing
Screen sharing makes it easy for the tutor to get everyone on the same page. It improves teacher-student engagement and increases the attentiveness towards the teacher. At the same time, class-room presentations have become very easy and convenient as students can directly share their screens hence eliminating the need for a projector and juggling with wires and adapters and connecting teachers from anywhere around the world.
Session Recording
Session recordings give students the comfort of knowing that they can get back to the material post-face-to-face session. Hence closing the gaps as students can go through the problematic concepts after the live session. Session recording also promotes the flipped classroom approach where teachers deliver core information before a face-to-face session, followed by student-centered activities.
These recording sessions prove to be very helpful to students for preparing during exams and assessments. It also relieves the student from taking down notes manually. Hence an ideal education app should support session recording to maximize student engagement.
File-share
File-sharing comes in handy for teachers when there is a need to share images, multimedia content, or other essential files right over the group chat. Hence all the students get access to the content immediately. Students can download/ upload the material and tasks quickly. The file share feature eliminates recurrent tasks and allows teachers/ students on the actual activity.
In-Session Chats
One of the advanced education mobile app features is the in-session chat that allows students to interact with their peers during an on-going glass. During the session, students can also raise their queries and get them addressed. This feature encourages real-time collaboration and discussion, leading an in-depth understanding of essential material. This scenario also promotes an interactive experience as teachers get feedback on a real-time basis.
Live Streaming
The internet has eliminated geographical barriers for most industries, if not all. The education sector and domain is one of the many to witness a positive impact of globalization. Most of the teaching platforms/ apps lack interaction, which is the most critical factor for effective learning. One of the most advanced education mobile app features was introduced to address this need, i.e., Live Streaming. It has a vast potential to impact learning with the right focus and strategy.
Live Streaming enables real-time interaction, massive reach, and efficient learning.
Chat Admins
Tutors/ professors are given the authority to be the chat admin wherein they can have a private conversation with students. Teachers can filter out students in various projects and monitor the progress regularly right from the app. Teachers can be well informed about their daily reports and other matters.
Non-verbal Feedback
For enhancing the user experience of any app, non-verbal feedback is the most honest in educational apps. One of the essential features for the mobile education app is the personalized experience that engages the user. A hand signal system proves to be an excellent way for the students to communicate and raise their concerns without disturbing the flow of learning. Hence, the message gets delivered quickly, and therefore the feature serves the purpose.
Polls
Polls are an exciting way of engaging students to post live sessions. Teachers can publish flexible questions, discussions, and live polls once the live sessions are over. This scenario will quickly engage students, and they can see the results/ responses instantly – a great way to create an active remote classroom.
Breakout Rooms
Breakout rooms feature within the app enables and teaches to distribute students based on the various topics. Teachers can shuffle/ enter different student groups in between to check the status of the assigned tasks. This feature allows teachers to monitor class assignments remotely and ensure learning is student-oriented, even in a virtual environment.
What are the new features in the education app?
Mock Test and Practical Exams
Evaluation/ exams are an integral part of traditional and modern learning methodology. Hence the new feature that students can expect within the app is “Exams.” The app can have a dedicated section apart from Polls and questions.
Offline Schooling
Since the lockdown, it has been noticed many students have limited/ no access to the internet. Offline schooling can be beneficial to such students where they can download a limited number of modules at a time and take maximum advantage of the app even in the absence of an internet connection.
Push Notifications
Push Notification has become an integral part of almost all the apps. These notifications grab the user’s attention as getting a gist of the message in a short text. The basic overview can be in the form of numbers/percentages. In terms of education apps, students can get notified regarding the course completion, the number of tests appeared and pending a reminder on pending submissions and upcoming deadlines. No wonder these push notifications can be altered from the settings, but these are efficient in keeping the students informed at every stage.
Gamification
It is a proven fact that kids of a certain age learn faster through a play-way method. You can soon expect Gamification to take over the overall concept that will help students learn faster through games and fun experiments. Gamification is expected to attract more students and enhance their user experience.
Personalization
The success of an educational app largely depends upon the personalized experience of the students. Educational apps mostly cater to learners of all age groups. Nowadays, most of the app offer personalization based on user’s convenience; however, soon, you will see educational apps have features such as custom learning. Students can alter the app based on the student’s study manners and methods.
The ever-evolving technological advancements have witnessed immense growth from the time pandemic was declared, and educational institutions started looking for options to mirror the in-class teaching experience. As the need for education apps grow, the demand for advanced educational features is also increasing to make the learning experience more enjoyable, fun, and interactive than ever.
Having an app for a school, college, or institute is no more a luxury; it is a necessity. Many institutes still refrain from having an education app due to the cost factors, complexity, and lack of resources to take up the development in-house.
Key Takeaways
Technostacks is a team of young and experienced developers who are highly proficient in mobile app development. We have worked on most of the advanced educational mobile app features on a diverse range of projects. For development, consultation or guidance regarding your upcoming education app project, feel free to reach out to our expert professionals or call us +919909012616 or email us info@technostacks.com.