2020 has been ‘the’ year that changed the world in a million ways, and when we talk business, it has impacted EVERY industry. Even education has not remained unaffected, but owing to the evolution of smartphones and mobile applications the pandemic did affect the way learning and teaching took place but could not ruin it. This led to the rise of school mobile apps for learning. And who knows that this might be a much better way of learning and soon becomes “the new normal”. After all, advanced technology has bridged the gap between learners and teachers.
Also, with this plethora of educational apps, learning has changed tremendously becoming far easier, simpler and engaging both for the students as well as the teachers. The best part is that the students or the teachers don’t have to be at one place together as the apps can easily be accessed from anywhere and at any time.
Looking at the ever-increasing prominence of e-learning apps and the many benefits of accessing digital education, this whole education market has become very lucrative for app developers as well as the entrepreneurs.
In case you are looking to enter into this business niche by developing an education app, then this article has got you covered.
As per Statista, 43% of the US students find the digital learning technologies very helpful to do the homework, while 36% of the students state it has been helpful to organize their schedule. Another survey stated that 81 percent of the students felt that with the help of Digital learning it was possible to boost their grades.
Presently, there are approximately 20 million students, staff members, and faculty members who use Educational Apps launched by the Google. And there are more 400 universities that use YouTubeEdu to post the lectures as well as full online courses. In fact, right now educational apps are the third most famous app on Apple App Store and they take a share of 8.5 percent.
Now the most basic requirement of any school is to have a smooth, compatible, secure and reliable communication platform. And in the times of pandemic, it has become a kind of necessity for the schools and educational institutions to offer this kind of platform to the teachers, students and the administration, so that the proceedings can take place in a smooth manner. It allows the school, faculties, parents, students to be in touch with one another and at the same time allows to send updates when required.
Having a great app makes communication speedy, efficient, and transparent for the organization. And at the same time, an app that is based on user understanding and also covers the entire academic lifestyle of all the students is a necessity for educational institutions today. Hence, try to create an app that best suits your needs, is profitable, and at the same time is easier to maintain.
This is one of the most popular monetization methods that allows the app to earn more. In freemium, the basic version of the app is offered free of cost and then the premium version is offered at a certain price. Through the Freemium version, the target audience is captivated by the premium app version.
In this traditional method, app access is allowed for free for a limited period of time. The free app allows users to access all the app for a limited amount of time, and then they are asked to buy the subscription after a certain time if they like your app. With a free trial, the app has a chance to gain popularity, and then there are many apps that allow to run the app it even without buying the paid version.
This one is the most effective and the easiest monetization model. However, it can only start once your app has reached a vast number of audiences. Once the app platform has gained prominence, this monetization strategy can be put to good use. However, there are times when this model ends up disturbing the app users by disrupting something that user is doing with an app. This break of concentration is often disliked by the users and puts the app in a negative light. Hence, to put this strategy to use, it is vital to initiate a thorough research and only show the relevant advertisements.
This monetization strategy can be implemented only when the app owner thinks that the app has the potential and they think the app is certain to gain popularity. This model works best for businesses which has a good reputation and enjoy a myriad of loyal clients. This way they can confidently launch the paid app version in the market directly.
The benefits of getting a School mobile app are many and are for all the app users, such as:
A school app allows for a school to create a brand name on a larger level as they get a chance to make their presence on big platforms like Google. Admission inquiries can be posted on the app and this increases the admission growth. There can be online fee payment which would be fast and on time and the app can constantly remind parents of the due date. Besides that, there is a convenience of having Students & Staff attendance on app, and the school can also schedule events & activities on the app.
The app allows staff like teachers to take class attendance via app and allows them to send remarks to the particular student directly on the app. Teachers and other staff can receive parents’ inquiries about their kids directly and the teachers can also add results of the students’ for respective exams subject-wise. Staff is able to receive as well as send instant notification to school, students, or parents, and the app allows the staff to edit/update their profile information. At the same time, daily logs concerning working hours can be managed and staff can assign tasks & assignments to kids via the app.
With the help of the app, parents are able to track the kids’ attendance & test results, lest there are any, and they can receive their kids’ exam schedule and marks in the app itself. Parents can also receive school events details & information and receive instant information from schools via push notifications. The app also allows the parents to check their kids’ bus/transportation in real-time via GPS.
To access the app, the users need to login/signup into the app, and this can be made easy and simple by allowing logging in and signing up via social media accounts. Here the users won’t require filling in long details to signup or enter login details each time to enter into the app.
An essential feature for any app, it allows the app to send real-time updates to the users, thus they can be informed about any activity related to the app.
This functionality promotes user interaction within the app.
When a payment system is integrated into the app, it enables its users to make easy payments, via PayPal, e-Wallets, Debit/Credit Cards, and NetBanking.
This is an important feature in the app useful for storing media or other documents on the app via a database server.
Most educational apps consist of AR & VR-based games. Which makes it easier for the kids to learn, as usually, the text-based courses don’t interest the kids.
When the educational content is offered in video or audio format, it sticks more to the brain. Hence it is advised to integrated the school apps with videos and sounds.
Having Video Session feature allows for live tutorials and live interaction with their mentor. This way their doubts can be cleared easily and on time. At the same time, it is suggested to ask learners to offer their feedback on how the session benefitted them, so as to find how they can further improve the experience.
It is kind of vital that the app offers offline mode, hence allowing students to download the lessons for times when they might face the issue of low or no internet connectivity. This will also increase user engagement with the app.
Tests are important part of learning and often students like to check how prepared they are for the actual exams and here mock tests can very much help.
Once the research work is done regarding how you really want your app to be, it is now time to decide on the development team for you app. Now, first it is important to decide whether you want the app for a single platform, i.e., Android or iOS, or both the platforms. As, accordingly one can make a decision on the development team. As to get the app developed for both the platforms, two different development teams would be required, one would be Android app development team and second would be iOS App Development team.
Also, to get the app developed, one needs to look for a good app development firm and ensures that it has a highly skilled and experienced set of app development team consisting of:
There are several factors that decide the cost of a School mobile app, depends on and here we have discussed a few of them, such as:
The app’s cost depends on the number of hours spent on developing it. Meanwhile, the hourly rates differs from country to country and the rates are higher in the countries of Europe, USA, and comparatively a lot less in India. Thus, if you choose to get an app developed by an Indian app development company it is going to cost a lot less.
Another factor on which the development cost of an app depends on is the platforms and devices, as mentioned above. More platforms means more development teams, and it means double the cost with each development team.
An app created with basic functionalities and without the integration of third-party APIs tend to cost a lot less than the app developed with advanced features and third-party APIs integrated.
There are a number of stages an app design process goes through, like Prototyping, wireframing, development and testing, etc. An app with complex design structure costs more and app with simple design costs less.
When an app is integrated with third-party service for enhanced performance and has more functionalities integrated, the cost increases simultaneously. And then the testing by the development team to find the bugs and errors again adds to the development cost of an app.
Once the app has been developed, it still requires continuous revisions, bug-fixing, version updates, enhancements, code optimization, and for all this it is necessary to keep certain budget aside, which is generally one-fifth of app’s original development cost.
Hence, to create an app for a single platform with basic functionalities, the cost can be anywhere around $25000-$35000, while an app with advanced features and third-party APIs integrations can cost anywhere around $50000-$70000.