A Forbes report predicted that the e-learning market would reach $325 billion by 2025. These figures are an incentive enough for more and more startups to design unique ideas, features, and capabilities for their users in the education industry. In the view of massive digitalization, the education industry will follow suit.
However, is a billion-dollar idea enough to create an engaging learning experience? Maybe! But equally important is the way you build the e-learning platform through which your target audience will access all that you have to offer.
A truly engaging learning experience is a combination of brilliant ideas with a stable platform that turns even a common-sensical project into an iconic business. With the boom in e-learning marketing, many entrepreneurs are trying their luck in the field of on-demand learning mobile apps. Consequently, many iOS and Android App Development Companies provide e-learning mobile app development services to education businesses.
About E-Learning Apps
Educational apps and platforms have become some of the best learning resources of present times. These apps guide learners in excellent ways, thus enhancing their skills and passion for learning.
In reality, e-learning can be as effective as traditional training but at a lower cost. The delivery costs associated with e-learning are lower than those accrued for classroom facilities. E-learning can save instructor time, the student’s commuting, and job time lost in conventional classroom-based learning. Also, e-learning reaches out to a broader target audience by engaging learners who have difficulty attending classroom training due to time and location barriers.
Due to the surge in the popularity of online mediums for education, even most of the new schools have started offering app-based education. It's evident that learning through a mobile app is beneficial for learners of all age groups and offers multi-dimensional benefits.
E-learning mobile app development companies collaborate with educational businesses to bring forth new concepts of developing e-learning apps. E-learning apps promote advanced and organized learning, offer content 24/7, track students' performance easily, and let you know your weaker areas and publish instant updates regarding the progress.
What Are the Benefits of E-Learning?
There are numerous benefits of e-learning. The crucial ones are listed here.
- Flexibility in learning
- Portability
- Age independence
- Quick and easy access to information
- Efficient medium for spreading knowledge
- Motivation and engagement
- Less expensive compared to offline learning
- Immense business potential due to profitability and social usefulness.
What Are the Different Types of E-Learning Platforms?
The five major types of e-learning software are as follows.
Courses Apps
These apps are used to run online courses through text and video content for the benefit of users.
Classroom Support Apps
These kinds of software provide support in the classroom environment. These apps aid distance learning programs.
Assessment Software
These e-learning apps run several quizzes and tests for the users. They are directed towards assessing the knowledge of participants. They also use scoring systems to boost retention rates.
Reference Software
Reference software apps aid the learning process through dictionaries and libraries.
Educational Software
Educational softwares are developed for specialized niche markets like tutors, driving instructors, healthcare, and medical practitioners.
Examples of Best E-Learning Mobile Apps From Around the World
If you feel that an e-learning app is the business opportunity you want to harness, but are unsure about the direction you must pick, take a look at the top educational apps in the different categories on the app stores.
Online Courses
Coursera
Coursera is an app that collaborates with top universities and colleges universally to provide online courses in various spheres. The app also issues financial aid for those willing to study despite financial difficulties.
The main features of Coursera include course catalog, discussion forum, and blog. The app also comes with interactive textbooks along with video and audio lectures. The app hosts online quizzes and submits tasks to peer students for assessment. The mobile app has a convenient payment system allowing participants to pay online for courses undertaken.
KhanAcademy
KhanAcademyconsists of short lessons and covers a variety of subjects from math, history, to computer programming, and art. The app features video lectures, online tests, etc., to make it a fruitful learning experience for users.
TED
TED is a free media resource that makes it an unconventional online course. The platform offers high-quality video speeches of experts in their area of studies or just inspiring as well as exciting stories. Most of the media is subtitled in many languages, making it accessible from all around the world.
Interestingly, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. The content is more innovative and unconventional than being an ideal online knowledge base. TED also offers a podcast playlist for the convenience of its users.
Duolingo
Duolingo app allows users to learn new languages. It offers a selection of the most popular ones to some exotic ones. The app also calculates a user's progress by dividing all knowledge into levels. This helps shoot up its retention and completion rates.
The app pairs every language lesson with practice tests. Duolingo app users can even get a Duolingo language certificate and add it to their LinkedIn profile.
Memory and Knowledge Apps
Wolfram Alpha
This app positions itself as a knowledge engine providing access to a vast database with concise information on a wide variety of topics. Inclusion of graphs, diagrams, comparative tables formulas, and step-by-step explanations make all the knowledge easily accessible to the users. Wolfram Alpha also offers a set of web tools for personal and business use.
Semper App
It is an efficient learning tool that works when a user is unlocking their phone or waiting for another app to load. It helps users quickly learn and memorize new words, phrases, and facts through short learning packs and microlearning puzzles. The app supports more than 50 languages.
Brainscape App
This app brings forth a new way of learning through flashcards. Users need to find flashcards created by teachers or other students. They can also create their own flashcards. Teachers can use the Brainscape app to boost attendance and engagement.
Supporting Learning Tools
Online Dictionaries
You can type a word and quickly find its meaning, synonyms, and antonyms, etc. thorough online dictionaries. Apps like Dictionary.com, Oxford Dictionary, Cambridge Dictionary, and Macmillan Dictionary make it possible.
Most online dictionaries come with multi-language translation features, phrases match, and an explanatory dictionary to help the user learn.
Online Libraries
Technology allows us access to e-books 24/7 through online library apps. Most of these apps have catalogs segregated by authors and genres.
Notes Management Apps
Evernote is a useful app for document management. The Evernote app helps you create and share text docs, to-do lists, and many other things. It facilitates information storage and collaboration with other students.
Exam Preparation Apps
Some apps help learners prepare for exams and ease student's lives. Apps like ExamPrep, GradeUp, ACT Prep, and SAT Up offer their users a chance to practice tests and quizzes. Some of them come with flashcards for quick memorizing.
Some apps are a step ahead; they help learners manage study time with different reminders. They also feature gamification elements like "Questions of the day" to surge retention rates.
How to Create the Ultimate E-Learning Experience in App Development?
Advanced technology has been contributing to our lives since the beginning of the 21st century. The same holds for the field of learning with the emergence of the concept of e-learning. Cut to present times; the mobile phone penetration has increased globally. This surge in penetration has significantly contributed to developing e-learning concepts and techniques in recent times.
Moreover, the success of e-learning further propels new businesses towards the vast opportunity in the field of e-learning app development.
Create Simple Learning Experience
Simpler the learning experiences, more beneficial they are to retain for most users. Instead of making the app visually attractive by including multiple photographs and extraneous graphics, focus on simplistic content presentation.
For example, if you are designing an in-app e-learning experience for kids, follow the rule of thumb by including clear visual structuring, bullet points, headings, and paragraphs, etc. This makes it easier for your target audience to grasp even the advanced e-learning options. Also, tutorial videos are a useful tool to transmit messages to users.
Stick to Your Goals
If you are out there designing an online training/ e-learning curriculum in the absence of a clear idea of your goal, your app is doomed for failure. Foremost, you must collect quality content for your learners that will help achieve their desired goals. Having a proper goal in mind while designing the app will not only help your learners to grasp the content but to apply the lessons in real life too.
Design and Analysis of the E-Learning App
Let your core focus be on the course design and analysis, so the e-learning curriculum highlights the technical solutions and learning activities it entails. Take time to narrow down on the duration, timing, and other associated details.
Mobile App Development
Mobile phones have revolutionized how we communicate in the digital era. Many businesses are working on mobile e-learning apps to take them to a new level. Before you develop your app, it is essential to research the features of the top Android learning apps that enhance the learning experience.
Narrow Down on the Styles of E-Learning
Initially, you may have to experiment with different styles of e-learning. Include learning mediums like audiobooks, instructional video tutorials, and video PowerPoints that revolutionize the learning experience. Using a combination of different mediums helps you understand learner preferences.
E-Learning Mobile App Mistakes to Avoid
There are so many free and open-source e-learning software solutions available. And, many businesses are developing e-learning software to earn profits through the subscription model. Whether you are going for a free e-learning software, or a custom-made one, or a ready-to-use software, it is essential that the software is high-quality and serves the needs of your users.
The best e-learning software is the one that is devoid of the following mistakes.
Mistake 1: Text Overload
While it's nice to share wholesome information, it's never a good idea to overload users with the information on the app. App designers may have to strategically decide how to choose the right bullet points and which stuff to edit to ensure engaging content presentation on the app.
Businesses need to seek help from a content specialist to work out the text and work with designers to decide on feasible, yet engaging ways to communicate. Learners opting for e-learning software are open to new ideas. Businesses can experiment with mixing multimedia and other interactive media content with the text to hold learners' attention for longer spans.
Mistake 2: Unresponsive App Design
For even a real learning experience to be successful, it needs to be engaging enough for the learner. Consequently, the rule of thumb dictates that for any e-learning app to be successful, it has to be responsive.
A responsive app design ensures the execution of all the user-triggered activities without any hanging or breaking down, almost swiftly. E-learners prefer an app experience because of its mobility. E-learning mobile apps that provide a consistent experience and make the resources available to learners 24/7 appeal to users the most.
Further, app businesses need to make the e-learning experience device-agnostic for a seamless approach. The app design must ensure that minimal interaction is required to access the information so that users do not need to scroll or zoom for viewing the content.
Mistake 3: Cluttered Application
It's common for e-learning startups to be overwhelmed with the thought of disbursing information to the learners, that they commit the crime of cluttering the app. This often makes the app too complicated for learners to use. In reality, a decluttered e-learning application experience engages and retains the users.
Create fresh, bright, and smooth app experiences with the presentation of information in a visually stunning manner. Also, keep the navigation clear, self-explanatory, and have an infrastructure that's robust enough to deal with any alterations that you may ensue at a later stage.
Mistake 4: Absence of Assessment and Evaluation Tools
Learning as we know it is mostly an interactive process, which serves the purpose of evaluation. The absence of periodic evaluations may stagger the e-learning app experience. Creating a continuous feedback loop mechanism helps to build great e-learning software.
App developers must devise a flexible, interactive module as well as a backend module that adds significant value to an app. Ensure that the interactive medium of an e-learning software provides a pool of questions for users that form an exam set with an enabled automated grading system.
Keep these tests time-independent, leaving some room for dropout due to unavailability. You can also set the time for completing a quiz to engage users. Self-assessment tests help learners make the most out of an application.
Mistake 5: Offline Learning Experiences
Offering services offline is one of the best ways to add value while opening up a source of revenue for budding e-learning software providers. Providing learners with offline content in an e-learning app can help you win their faith.
E-learning offline courses make the app more engaging. In fact, offline e-learning modules can be offered as a premium service that may boost the revenue model of a startup. Offline courses help them download the course and access it offline, and when the connection/internet is unavailable.
Conclusion
With increasing internet penetration, e-learning has proved to be a useful training delivery method world over. In times to come, the trends show additional enhancements in e-learning platforms.
Several mobile app development initiatives have positively contributed to enhancing the scenario for learning even in the most remote places in the world. Moving forward, it would be interesting to see the combination of e-learning and an ever-evolving communication system that are all set to offer a sustainable way to serve eager learners.
Crafting a brilliant and engaging e-learning software requires real expertise from the developers. You can take advantage of their efforts by using one of the top e-learning software such as Eurekos, Nerd Geek Lab, Chamilo, Docebo, Lynda, etc.
The best way to choose the e-learning software for your needs is to check its reviews. And, if you have used any e-learning software, don’t forget to post a review here!
