Coronavirus Drives Learners Out of Schools: Will Education Apps Keep Them Engaged?
Coronavirus forced the closure of schools in the US and the rest of the world, sending students and schoolchildren to their homes. To compensate for the educational needs of millions of learners around the globe, it becomes inevitable to search for new and relevant ways of delivering information. Thankfully, modern technology helps to deliver such a solution and education apps take a prominent place among them.
Why Mobile Learning is the Future
The pandemic that urged parents to work from home engaging their children with what’s interesting and good for their educational process, triggered an unexpected mass testing of education apps. Many students and teachers have actually tried using educational apps for the first time and awed at the great benefits they provide.
One of the benefits of using mobile technology during the learning process is that students gain access to and ability to control the information they receive. While opening up unlimited learning opportunities for students, mobile apps provide the much-thought engagement and freedom to adopt the process of learning to the learners’ pace.
Mobile apps can not only compensate for the Covid-related lockdowns, UNESCO scientists highlight a number of advantages of mobile learning over the traditional forms. Here are the most important ones:
Mobility
Modern smart gadgets make it possible to organize and optimize the educational process, regardless of place and time. There are two aspects to this kind of mobility. First, it is possible to implement educational programs regardless of the location of a qualified specialist.
Secondly, cloud storage systems make it easy to access your course from different devices. This way, students can easily use different devices to complete tasks and have access to all previously available information even if they change mobile phone.
Permanent education
In previous years, the use of information technology was linked to stationary devices. AS students increasingly own their own smartphones and can enjoy a wireless internet connection, they gain the ability to complete tasks at any time convenient for them. What is more, students can receive a passive share of instruction outside the classroom, in the fresh air.
Personalization of training
Mobile applications provide the learner with the choice of the content of certain courses and the level of difficulty. They allow learners to advance to the next level of difficulty depending on their personal preferences and acquired knowledge, independently evaluate the results and perform additional tasks to consolidate the material.
Improving the quality of communication
Mobile devices allow building fast and high-quality communication between the teacher and the student. Feedback from students allows teachers to track performance separately for each student. Unlike the traditional form of submission of teaching materials and assignments, mobile learning uses innovative technologies and social media that make the very teaching process change.
Education App Trends
The education apps market is expected to increase dramatically in the next few years and reach a CAGR of about 26% by 2024. An experienced mobile app development company in Singapore with a number of education apps for children and staff training behind its shoulders expects the industry to develop even faster, as the need for social distancing has brought about massive digitalization.
Here are the major trends in the education app development that will define the future of the industry.
Augmented Reality
AR is undoubtedly a huge breakthrough in the way of presenting education info and in the assimilation of information by schoolchildren and students. A three-dimensional image stimulates thinking, develops motility, facial expressions, attention and increases the degree of assimilation, memorization and, most importantly, understanding of information. Regardless of the subject, augmented reality helps to increase its attractiveness for students of any age and increases the motivation to acquire knowledge.
Augmented reality in education can be used to maximize the visibility and interactivity of the studied subject, deepening immersion in it, and conduct virtual laboratory work. Using AR and 3D modeling together motivates students to learn.
Artificial Intelligence
AI technologies are used to provide individualised training and tutoring. Smart systems may detect what topic is not yet grasped by a student and repeat these topics along with the new training material. It can adapt the program to student’s needs in real-time and identify ways to improve the programs themselves.
Another example of the narrow application of AI is its use for automation of grading. AI allows not to limit computerised tests to multiple-choice questions that do not make students actively engage in critical thinking. Using this technology, students may spell out their answer to the open question and see it transferred into a text and automatically assessed.
Virtual Reality
Over the past few years, the focus of VR companies has begun to shift towards education. The market for VR education solutions has already passed the $656.6 million mark. These technologies are completely changing the learning process itself. VR technologies allow us to generate knowledge through experience bringing a certain level of app gamification to the learning process.
Via a VR app, students can now completely immerse themselves into historical events or examine the work of art in detail. Using a special application, a student can point a smartphone or a tablet at his mate and see his skeleton and bone system. Indeed, learning can be much more interesting with the amazing VR technologies.
Gamification in Education Apps
A few children think education is fun, but mobile apps can tackle this perception. Gamification is a revolutionary approach that makes the learning process both engaging and effective.
It is important to note that gamification does not equal a game — something many parents and teachers are worried about. Successful app gamification techniques include choosing an online identity, entering competitions with other learners, getting an instant reward, or buying additional features or possibilities with earned points.
Micro-Learning
Broken attention, lack of free time and the habit of consuming content in small “portions”, which social networks instill in us, set the stage for a new phenomenon in educational technologies. Micro-training, or bite-sized learning, makes it possible to master new areas of knowledge in the format of five-minute daily lessons.
Many platforms provide affordable options for getting a micro-training program. For instance, the user in the micro-learning format gets acquainted with the course, masters one module and then can buy the program further. It is also possible to adopt any educational content to the microformat. The same technologies are used by several successful companies in the field of electronic books.
Final Word
As the panic over the disrupted educational process goes down, the educators and learners worldwide start seeing great value in education apps.
Indeed, this is not a useful entertainment, but rather an effective education presented in an engaging, convenient, and up-to-date model. And it has all the chances to complement the educational environment and be actively in use after the virus is tempered and children are back to schools.
