5 Educational App Development Trends For The Year 2021

Last year, when the pandemic hit the world, it affected a lot of people around the globe. Most people were locked in their houses and everything came to a halt. The biggest question mark was for the students and teachers – how to continue studies? It led to online learning – though not a new concept, it has picked up pace since the pandemic. As education apps are becoming increasingly popular, they are changing the way students learn both at school and outside it.

Mobile learning is the primary educational trend on its own, spreading across the globe and becoming more popular. As smartphones and internet penetration increase, e-learning is becoming more and more accessible. Tablets and smartphones are no longer thought of as distractions, cheats, and addictive devices.

There is an enormous opportunity to learn online, develop new teaching methods, gain skills and knowledge quickly. The number of people using educational apps as well as the number of e-learning software development companies has increased considerably. We anticipate the trend will continue in 2022.

Here are some stats to show how the education apps have grown since the pandemic – 

• A set of predictions by the Research and Markets data provider, globally the e-learning market is estimated to be worth $398 billion by 2026. This represents an increase of 300% from the market worth $107 Billion in 2015.
• After a 17% Y/Y download growth in 2018, and 18% Y/Y in 2019, education apps witnessed a 30% Y/Y growth in the first quarter of 2020.
• The demand for mobile education is so high that experts predict the market to expand by $46.9 billion with a CAGR of about 26% to 2024.
• The maximum downloads were from countries like China, Italy, the US, and Spain. China had more than 250% growth in education app downloads compared to pre-COVID-19. Australia saw the biggest growth in education apps download with a 190% growth in peak week in 2020 compared to the weekly average in the last quarter of 2019.

The convenience, timesaving, and cost-effective advantages of e-learning apps cannot be overstated. A fresh mobile e-learning solution now has a greater chance of succeeding than ever before as it would introduce a completely new strategy to the market. If you want to develop such an application, don’t miss the chance! However, if you want your e-learning app to be successful and profitable, you have to stay aware of the latest trends in app development and work towards implementing them in your product, something that top educators do consistently.

If you are looking for an innovative education app, below are the top education app development trends for 2022 to look out for:

Mobile App with Video Content – There is no doubt YouTube is the biggest platform when it comes to online videos. YouTube currently has over 2 Billion monthly active users, and currently of all the active mobile internet users, 46.7% log on to YouTube monthly.  However, not all of them are on the platform for videos or pass time videos. A small percent of these viewers also come to YouTube for educational videos on channels like Ted-Ed and National Geographic.

If you can integrate video content into mobile apps for learning, it will be more interactive as it is easy to use. Since moving pictures is the easiest way to learn new information.

When we talk about education apps, don’t restrict yourself to school students. A lot of organizations across the world are depending on education apps to hold webinars and train their employees on new and trending topics. If you can give streaming and video chat option to your users, you will have a complete package for them and be highly competitive in the market.

 

AI in education apps – You can make educational apps personalized by understanding user behaviour using Artificial Intelligence. You can use AI in complex data analysis algorithms to help students learn and also to enhance educational management systems. By 2024, half of the learning management tools that will be created on the educational theme will be enabled by AI capabilities.

Features like voice assistants will help students to interact with the course material without the involvement of the teacher. Small children love the voice interacting feature of educational apps, and some of the apps are doing very well in this segment.

Another reason why AI-based educational apps will continue to grow is that they make an app accessible to everyone irrespective of their disabilities or language. For teachers, AI can take care of the grading and frees a lot of teachers’ time that can be used to prepare more informative lessons, enhance the quality of material, and do other things.

Personalized Educational apps – More and more people are using mobile apps in education because they get a personalized experience using these apps. They get to learn what they want to learn. If you are planning to consider investing in an educational app, it would be worth considering an educational app that comes with personalization. With personalization, students get better control over their learning process and superior experience.

When we talk about personalization, we are not referring not just with respect to content. A personalized education app also means giving users the option to choose the look and feel of the app. Let them choose the background colors of the apps, sounds, and avatars.

For content, if you can give them only those lessons they are interested in and they need to learn, you can make the learning process more enjoyable, comfortable, and rewarding for them. With all such personalized experiences, the chances are higher they will stay longer on your platform. You should focus on creating content based on your users’ personal preferences, interests, past experience, goals, and needs.

Gamification for fun learning – The notion that learning for students should be fun has been going around for some years now. However, on the ground level, there is no major change. Students still continue to learn using the same methods.

Now gamified education apps are changing that for students. These apps are for all age groups – it is a revolutionary approach that is going to change how students learn this.

Education apps use a fun environment for students to meet real-life challenges and deal with other situations in a safe environment. Children learn playing games and here you mix the both – education and games and so you don’t have to force them to sit and study.

You will have to be careful to find a balance between learning and entertainment. If the balance is not maintained, the whole purpose of the app will be defeated. The best approach would be to first focus on learning and then add a dimension of entertainment to support learning outcomes. The app’s primary purpose is to educate, and no compromise should be made on it. The games should know when to take the learning to the next level for students. Taking learning to the next level by winning a game is a big confidence booster for students.

All these would not have been possible a decade ago, but thanks to technology, creating such apps is easy now, and such apps are gaining popularity. It will be the most popular trend for 2022.

Microlearning – Many people want to learn new things. However, not everyone has time to sit down and complete a course in a week. Secondly, it is not just about time, it is also about focus and attention. With so much already to deal with in a day to day life, most people fail to do it. For the same reason, microlearning apps are picking up, and the trend will continue in the future as well.

Microlearning is about dividing the educational process into small multiple parts for students(or any age group users) so that they don’t have to spend more than five to ten minutes on one go. Even if they have little time, they can continue the learning process.

Integrating microlearning in education apps can solve these issues and attract a wider age group audience to your app. As per experts, the microlearning app makes learning more efficient by 17%.

The best approach would be to have a traditional educational app and integrate microlearning as a side-on.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that e-learning is here to stay. With the pandemic promoting e-learning apps, more and more leaders are seeing how they can reduce their costs by moving their content online. In spite of this, there is still a large gap that needs to be filled, and those who are able to fill it will certainly benefit.

Basically, the whole world’s economy depends on the development and quality of mobile software nowadays. E-learning done through mobiles, desktop and smart devices is the core of education today, as it gives students the opportunity to learn anything and anywhere, making them popular and sometimes even indispensable. The reality is that people prefer to access educational material through their smart devices.

Bio

Harikrishna Kundariya, a marketer, developer, IoT, ChatBot & Blockchain savvy, designer, co-founder, Director of eSparkBiz Technologies . His 10+ experience enables him to provide digital solutions to new start-ups
based on IoT and ChatBot.