Hardly any other event impacted our lives the way the COVID pandemic did. Remote working became a new norm, virtual conferences replaced real-time meetings, and mobile phones became an inseparable part of our lives. Some used them to binge-watch their favorite shows and scroll on social media, while others used them for learning and acquiring new skills.
According to Statista.com, the eLearning industry has witnessed a boom. In 2019, the eLearning market was worth $101 billion but surpassed $315 billion in 2021, and it is likely to grow with a 20% CAGR from 2022-2028.
In this article, we’ll learn how mobile apps have played a crucial role in positively pushing the eLearning industry. We’ll also understand a few things that you must keep in mind if you decide to have a mobile learning app in the future. Let’s begin:
Advantages of Mobile Apps in eLearning
1. Helping People Better Utilize Their Time
Most students prefer gadgets over books, and if given a choice, they would happily trade learning for watching movies or checking out Instagram. They know these activities waste their time and even want to stop, but they can’t help themselves.
With mobile learning apps, students always have a choice to use their time wisely. Instead of watching a movie or checking out Instagram, they can open an eLearning app to learn new topics and sharpen their memory. Isn’t it a better utilization of otherwise wasted time?
2. Making Learning Easily Accessible
Taking time out of busy schedules is one of the biggest challenges in traditional learning. Students must attend classes regularly and visit a library if they miss them.
Mobile apps make learning easily accessible on our smartphones. They don’t have to attend classes or visit a library; they only need to log into the app and learn their own way, and at their own pace. Even missing lectures is not a problem because students can always find the module, videos, and material on their mobile app. This flexible nature of mobile apps makes learning more relaxed and enjoyable for them.
3. Helping Students Score Better in Exams
Traditional learning has many loopholes that hamper students’ performance, such as:
- The traditional learning approach requires students to manage their schedules according to the institution’s guidelines.
- Students are heavily dependent on tutors for the pace of their learning. They miss out if they can’t cover a topic in their schedule. If they cover it early, they must wait until the teacher finishes teaching it to the entire class.
- Traditional learning requires commuting to the schedule or the institution regularly, wasting a lot of the time they could spend studying.
Mobile apps solve this problem by letting students learn at their pace. They can attend a pre-recorded lecture if they missed class or couldn’t pay attention. If a student has studied the topic in advance, they can use lecture notes to understand the subject matter comprehensively. It improves students’ learning experience and scores better in exams.
4. Creating an Interactive Learning Experience
Traditional learning is far from interactive. Lectures are monotonous and often one-sided where the teacher delivers, but students barely listen. As a result, knowledge is half-baked, and students’ performance hampers.
Mobile apps make learning fun by offering students a 360-degree learning experience where they can ask questions, participate in discussions, and learn through practical assignments. Even teachers get special privileges like student performance tracking or broadcast messaging. It creates an immersive learning experience we could only dream of in traditional learning.
5. Helping You Create Your Learning Path
Another exciting thing students can do with eLearning apps like Lynda, Coursera, and UpGrad but not with traditional learning, is to create their learning path. They can decide what course they want to pick, how many hours to spend learning, and from which instructors to learn. These students can also connect with a learning mentor if they can’t decide their course path.
Creating their course journey ensures students are not studying subjects they don’t want to, and learning is an enjoyable experience.
6. Reduced Educational Costs
Education is expensive, and college tuition fees are just the tip of the iceberg. Students would have to commute to the college daily, relocate to the new city if it’s not near their home, and even look for a boarding house or hostel. All these things can cost them a fortune.
However, students don’t have to worry about all these things with a mobile education app. They don’t have to be admitted to a college, move to a new city, or look for a hostel. Instead, they can learn from experienced teachers from their couch. That too by paying a nominal fee. Imagine how much money they can save this way!
7. Students can Get a Degree While Doing a Job
Many people want a college degree but can’t because they have a family to feed, and they can’t bear quitting their job and spending time in college. Hence, for most people, higher education remains a broken dream.
Mobile learning apps allow people to get a degree from reputed institutions without attending college. It means they can continue studying while earning a living. Some people even use these education apps to acquire new skills and get promotions or high-paying jobs.
5 Must-have Features of Educational Mobile Apps
Let’s assume you want to create an educational mobile app. What app features would you want in it? To answer this question, we must go through essential elements all cloud eLearning mobile apps are offering:
1. Personalized Learning
All successful education apps thrive on personalized learning. Students enjoy learning more when they choose their learning process based on their pace and needs. Udemy is a brilliant example of such a learning app. It lets users select the pace of their course and decide whether they want to watch video/audio lectures – and lo behold, they have over 35 million users.
2. Affordable Courses
Many people want to learn, but only a few want to pay. Students especially prefer m-learning apps that offer accessible or affordable courses as they don’t have much money to spare.
If making money is your concern, you can do it through ads. If you don’t want that because ads hamper the learning experience, you can keep your courses affordable, and Udemy does that by selling courses for as low as $5.
3. Freedom from Clichéd Learning
If students were interested in traditional learning methods, they would have joined a school or college. They use education apps because they want the learning experience to be radical, fun, and immersive. Hence, don’t get stuck in clichés and take an innovative approach to learn in your app. Use quizzes and puzzle games to keep learners glued. Let them contribute, ask questions, and even participate in healthy discussions. It would make learning exciting and ensure learners remain glued to your app.
4. Personal Guides & Mentors
Students are more self-aware these days and don’t just want a course but also personal mentors who can guide them throughout their learning journey. Hence, it would be best if you offered a personalized learning network in your app where learners can quickly get in touch with their mentors.
5. Personalized Growth Tracking
Learning apps are incomplete without a growth track. A person can’t learn if they don’t know if they’re heading in the right direction. Hence, your app must have a personalized growth tracking feature to measure students’ performance with metrics like strong and weak points, tips to improve, etc.
In Conclusion
There’s no reason why you shouldn’t create mobile apps. They have a lot of business scope and a huge demand. You must integrate features to develop a mobile-learning app that connects with the masses. This will become unstoppable.
You can also approach a mobile app development company to create an educational app. They have the right expertise and experience in developing such products.