How Are Education Apps Impacting The Education Industry?
The most significant wave in the education industry came with the coming of technology. Being in 2020, we do not need to highlight how technology has impacted education for all ages.
Amidst this COVID scenario, many industries had to face a downfall in their businesses. Edtech, or the educational-technological industry as it’s called, leaped in the market and used this as an opportunity to provide better E-learning solutions to youngsters in the comfort of their homes. Web and mobile applications like Udemy, Coursera, etc. have made continuous efforts to make education an easy and manageable affair through online learning.
Edtech has become the backbone of the entire education industry today with a total market value of USD 21.66 billion in 2019, which is projected to reach USD 68.54 billion by 2024.
Talking about online applications, around 81% of the population today uses mobile phones and laptops to study and upgrade themselves. Moreover, mobile applications lead this entire race to be the most used platform for online learning for their innumerable handy and user-friendly benefits.
With changing scenarios, education app development service providers are rising consistently.
Investors in the Edtech industry can recognize the significant global trends with which growth in this industry is inevitable to all its stakeholders. These trends include:
- Continuous population growth in developing countries will lead to a change in the demand for education service providers, tools, and technology.
- Increasing digitization will lead to improved efficiency in delivery standards on education
- Tremendous opportunities to solve critical problems in the industry like (student debt, flattening test scores)
Shifted Focus to Self-Learning
With applications like Udemy and Coursera taking the lead in providing affordable online courses on almost all possible skill sets, the focus has shifted to self-learning more than old-school classroom learning. Today, youngsters are not limited to their particular streams of science, commerce, or humanities anymore. This means that even a commerce graduate with specializations in accountancy can learn how to code from scratch, thanks to E-Learning mobile applications.
Smart Classrooms for Students
There has been a significant shift in smart classrooms for school children in the past few years, resulting in better teaching patterns. Now, learning has shifted from monotonous one-sided lectures to gamified sessions where students play while they learn new concepts. Both students and teachers are now benefitting from this. They can view the entire syllabus online and decide which courses and subjects to start first. Interactive digitized blackboards installed in classes help students visualize their chapters and diagrams while learning.
Parents Have Better Control
With all student activities being mapped out on your handsets, parents today can have better control over their children’s education. All essential features like chapters, notes, homework, exam syllabus, date sheet, etc. can now be accessed by parents using their profiles. Parents and teachers can stay in direct contact thanks to these applications to help eliminate loopholes in their children’s development.
Rise of Application-Based Learning
With the World Advertising Research Centre coming with a bold prediction stating that 72% of the internet user will be using smartphones to access all information by 2025, education-based mobile applications had to take the lead in increasing their mobile presence. Mobile applications are easy to use, handy, and give the user flexibility while learning and acquiring new skillsets.
Cost-effective learning:
With E-learning made available in the comfort of home, education has become affordable, accessible, and cost-effective to many youngsters. The packages they purchase include notes, online videos, tests, and live projects completed as per their convenience.
Customized packages
Learning today has become too focused. If you wish to gain expertise in ‘React JS’, you can always choose to opt for a course dedicated to ‘React JS’ basics. This helps you save money from paying for courses that you’re not interested in.
Rise of Edtech based start-ups
With the rising use of education applications, the global Edtech market is proliferating with massive scope for early-stage start-ups and middle-sized companies. Start-ups have analyzed the importance of technology in all three categories of education i.e formal, informal, and non-formal. Hence an industry like Edtech has relevancy throughout the life of a learner.
Remote learning
Looking at the current COVID crises, remote learning features that come with educational app-based learning have helped students continue their studies without any hassle. Schools have been able to continue with their classes online, and various institutions have successfully given coachings on one on one basis through online applications. Live doubt clearing, note sharing, etc. have been possible because of this change in the educational system only.
Top Technologies Ruling the Educational Application Market
Artificial intelligence (AI)
AI is one of the essential technological interventions impacting the education sector by aiding in content creation, customization of learning processes, automating grading, generating more leads, etc. The global market for AI in education is expected to be valued at USD 3.68 Bn by 2023 at a Compound annual growth rate of 47% during the period 2018-2023.
The biggest problem of E-learning that AI helps solve is making customized or personalized educational packages for all. An adaptive learning system can be easily used to design various learning models as per the needs of the users through AI.
Blockchain
The best benefit offered by blockchain is data security. The data is stored in a distributed ledger system where absolutely no one can hamper it. Therefore it provides safety along with transparency to all its users. Hence blockchain is helping connect networks through comfortable and safe data sharing on a single platform
Other than that, other benefits of blockchain in the education industry include:
- It helps to validate the authority of educational resources
- Assists in preventing fraud and malpractice within institutions. Applications supported by blockchain can help in validating daily processes like attendance and assignment submissions.
- It helps in creating and maintaining CVs online that could be easily shared with various employers.
- Helps in managing records of the students and faculties online. It reduces paperwork and accelerates operations.
- Tutors can interact with each other from different parts of the world on the same platform.
AR/VR
Augmented reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are technologies that are bringing real-looking environments into classrooms by introducing different virtual elements and situations for efficient learning. The best examples of AR/VR in learning applications are in the medical and airline industry. Real-looking virtual environments are created for doctors and pilots during training to apply their learning practically before they step into real situations. With many such examples, technologies build a pace of understanding complex subjects with ease and creativity by developing great educational apps for students and teachers.
Also read: 5 Augmented Reality trends to watch out for in 2020 & beyond.
Gamification
One of the most efficient ways to improve engagement while learning is through Gamification. Applications today have features like leader boards, level-ups, trophies, awards, and badges to be awarded as the difficulty level increases while they learn and grow through the app. It evokes creativity, excitement, and imagination in students. Typical examples include Duolingo and vocab.com which use a similar concept.
With everything going in the right direction, what is it that’s still lagging?
With everything going in the right direction, what is stopping this industry from booming in all spheres? Although the industry well receives the dynamic changes brought in by these educational apps, some bottlenecks can potentially clog the industry from growling. These include:
- Lack of awareness on how to mainstream your conventional education business in schools to a fast-tracked technology-driven teaching system: schools situated in remote areas have no clue on how to bring about this technological change in their school environment because of which the students continue to stay disconnected with the benefits attached to E-learning
- No mechanism for Edtech start-ups to get certified with regulatory bodies, ultimately resulting in reduced trust levels between the start-ups and investors.
Conclusion
With the rising use of mobile phones and handsets by millennials, app-based learning shifts the focus of conventional classroom education to a more flexible and customized form. This has given rise to an entire Edtech industry in the market that’s taking place in most of the developing nations. Applications make learning more accessible, fun, handy, and affordable to many people, eventually helping them upgrade themselves as per the market standards. For getting a quick hold of efficient education apps, you can reach out to capable mobile app development companies like Apptread. An association with us will guarantee the timely delivery of fully loaded education apps that are student-centric in every possible way.