Introduction
Education fuels technology. However, in the case of e-Learning app development, it is technology that is transforming education. Thedawn of high-speed internet brought with it many boons, one of which is e-Learning mobile apps.
It just takes a course on Coursera to be certified by Ivy League universities and upskill your game and create an engaging e learning experience. With the use of e-Learning mobile apps, learners are no longer limited to the traditional classroom setting.
A survey found that e-Learning app development is expected to grow to $1 trillion by 2028, giving a new direction to the education industry. Let’s explore e-Learning app development in this blog to understand its benefits and features, and if you are planning to launch your own app, then the steps to follow and more.
What is an e-Learning App?
An interactive application that is used to teach, share, and use for information exchange with the students.
It is an online learning platform for students, teachers, learners, and educators for knowledge sharing or exam preparation. These applications are available on the app stores to download, install, and use. They offer a wide range of digital educational resources.
Benefits of e-Learning apps
Some benefits of e-Learning apps are listed below
Accessibility and Convenience
The most sought-after and the most-rated feature is accessibility and convenience. It is literally having education at your fingertips. e-Learning apps became a great success as
Flexibility in Learning
Learning through application is very flexible as it enables you to access the course from anywhere. It eliminates the need for four-wall-bound learning. With eLearning, students have a lot of freedom in where and how they access the classroom. Additionally, students can access the study materials whenever it is most convenient for them from the learning platform.
Cost-Effectiveness
It has drastically reduced the cost in terms of accommodation for students or teachers when compared to traditional setups. Simulators and other added features help lower lab costs. You can get a long-lasting, effective, and affordable solution with one-time app creation.
Personalized Learning Experience
The courses are focused on one-to-one learning and, hence, are very personalized. The AI/ML tech implementation helps assess the caliber and pain points of any student and gives them calculated feedback based on their performance. Topics are suggested according to the student to improve conceptual learning at an individual level.
Varied Learning Resources
There used to be a restriction on the courses that a person may enroll in. However, the whole system has been significantly streamlined since the introduction of eLearning mobile apps, allowing students to select various courses. A user can select to have several classes from different applications using e-Learning mobile apps.
Core Features Of e-Learning app
The core features of online learning platforms are decided according to the application. Here are some generic core features that are applicable to online learning applications.
Interactive Learning Content
Online is a one-way communication, which makes it mandatory for the learning content to be interactive and immersive. The apps create an e-Learning experience interactive. The content on the app should be immersive and engaging.
Assessment and Progress Tracking
The application encompasses the assessment section where the students can track their progress. The application tracks the journey of every student, showcasing the completion of various tasks and helping in gauging the concept completion. Assessments are the report card of students showing their progress.
User-Friendly Interface
A user-friendly interface is a success ingredient. The more easy an interface to use, the more popular it becomes. A smooth user interface makes the learning process and navigation through the app an easy process. An intuitive interface enhances user interaction and ensures a seamless user experience.
Mobile Compatibility
A mobile app successfully working on all the devices like smartphones or tablets has good compatibility. It ensures the accessibility of educational content on different devices.
Multi-platform Access
The multi-platform access enables users to accommodate services on different platforms like various OS like Android, iOS, and other
Types of e-Learning App
There are various categories of e-Learning mobile apps depending on the goal you want to target. Professionals eyeing upskilling choose from corporate training apps, while students targeting competitive exam prep will opt for the exam preparation application category.
Online Course Platforms
Coursera
The most widely known e-Learning app. This app has multiple courses on various disciplines, catering to thousands of students with online education. It collaborates with universities and colleges to provide courses with or without certification. Some courses are free of charge, whereas some courses are charged with fees.
edX
Founded by Harvard and MIT alumni, the app offers certification courses from all the big names. The app houses professional certificate courses and micro-degrees as well. Students keen on learning from prominent universities can utilize this app and satisfy their quest for high-quality education.
Udacity
The most popular upskilling app for coding, programming, and techies. The app is famous among the programmer community for its personalized learning experiences. A learning platform like this offers hands-on projects with industry experts.
Skill Enhancement Apps
The most practical method for self-paced learning is the online learning app. The convenience of studying from anywhere and picking up from where you left off is one of the key benefits of such kind of learning apps.
LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn learning has been a comprehensive platform for learning for some time now. The platform has many courses and certifications for different skills. It has courses on a broad spectrum varying from art to technology to culinary arts.
Pluralsight
It offers industry expert-guided courses. It is much known for its variety of courses in the technology sector. It covers areas such as software development, data sciences, and many others.
Skillshare
A presentation-sharing platform transformed into a knowledge-sharing app. It covers courses on design, architecture, photography, and writing as well. It emphasizes community-based interaction and group learning. Project-based learning is another feature that stands out from the competitors.
Corporate Training Apps
Corporate training uses virtual learning apps frequently because they let businesses train staff without spending time or money. Check out a few of the most widely utilized learning apps for business training.
Udemy for Business
It provides courses for businesses in various verticals like IT operations, finance, manufacturing, and more. The stand-out feature is it provides tailor-made training and courses for the learners to grow in their respective careers.
LinkedIn Learning for Teams
LinkedIn offers this to ensure team spirit and team bonding to improve collective results. It focuses on professional development to enhance the skills and knowledge of the employees.
Skillsoft
They have a unique format where they have divided the courses into three categories for future leaders and business, tech training, and compliance & ethics. The range of courses is dedicated to employees to develop their skills and contribute to the growth of the organization.
Exam Preparation Apps
Khan Academy
A non-profit educational app focused on delivering courses on exam preparation. It offers free courses for students around the world. Personalized training and separate training for teachers makes it the top choice among students and teachers. Courses ranging from class I to class XII and other competitive exams like SAT are available. Courses can be tailored with respect to different Indian state boards like Maharashtra, Punjab, Gujarat, and others.
Magoosh
The educational app is popular among competitive exam students. It offers courses on the GRE, GMAT, SAT, and other exams. Magoosh first started as a business exam prep app with dedicated resources on GMAT, flourishing in the venture, they further expanded.
PrepScholar
It offers special courses on SAT and ACT preparation. They offer personalized course content, test series, and focused study plans catering to the different needs of every individual student. The score improvement guides help students achieve their target scores with an engaging learning process.
Steps to Create e-Learning app
Idea and Conceptualization
Your e-Learning app development company has to know exactly what your idea is, therefore, you must explain to them your vision associated with the app. Coming to an e-Learning app development company with specific requirements, references, and dos and don’ts is a fantastic idea.
Planning and Strategy
Your e-Learning mobile app development team needs a clear description of your issues and goals in order to know what has to be done. Your team won’t be able to develop an effective e-Learning software without clear specifications.
The requirements document often includes elements like the project overview, your needs and goals, the target audience, the intended feature set, recommendations, references, restrictions, etc.
Design and User Experience
Make sure the UX design’s objectives are crystal clear before beginning this phase. At this point,
- making design judgments,
- creating prototypes of your ideas,
- and obtaining user feedback.
These are key to laying out a great UI/UX plan. The roadmap based on the application’s concept and design to begin the UX design process is created very minutely. Wireframes and the information architecture are created at this stage.
Experts will make sure that your website’s interface elements all have the same look and feel, employ your brand’s colors, and choose the typefaces that are best for you.
Development
Client-side applications are the domain of front-end developers. The back-end work, like creating and integrating the APIs or managing the data storage and databases, is done by back-end developers. The DevOps developers are responsible for the CI/CD process. All given code is tested by QA engineers, who also create automated tests for created components.
The front-end and back-end of a mobile app are often not strictly segregated from one another. Therefore, you need an experienced mobile app developer for all your e-Learning app development needs.
Content Creation
Compelling content is the anchor for a great e-Learning mobile app. Delegate your content needs to content creators to ensure the best results. Educators having good concepts and content writers transforming those concepts into easy learning will make your app appealing to the students.
Testing and Quality Assurance
The QA engineers dedicatedly test the codes to ensure the given piece of code is bug-free.
Security Integration
Implementing security measures is a must when dealing with e-Learning mobile app development. It has sensitive information such as details of candidates and financial information that are important. Such personal details are crucial to intruders as they can leverage them in exchange for undue benefits.
User Testing and Feedback
The testing phase is turning the prototype into a functional app. Focus group interviews, evaluation studies, and usability reports are the last three crucial phases of testing.
Eye-tracking technology records a user’s behavior while they interact. The data output given is compared with actual data and analytical data to study the results. These results are used to improve the loopholes and the app’s usability.
Deployment and Launch
The tested version of the software is given to users for beta testing following development and regression analysis from the QA team.
Marketing and Promotion
A dedicated team to market and promote the e-Learning mobile app to ensure it is placed correctly in the target audience.
User Support and Maintenance
The maintenance stage follows the deployment of a product in a production environment. The development team is in charge of all these tasks at this point if a problem arises that needs to be solved or if something needs to be enhanced.
Tech Stack Requirements For e-Learning App
Tech stack refers to all the technological tools needed in e-Learning app development. These tools are frameworks for both frontend and backend, databases for data management, essential mobile app development programming languages, Cloud hosts, and content management systems.
- Front-end – HTML, CSS, Java, React, Angular
- Back-end – Java, Node.js, Ruby on Rails, Python
- Database – MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB
- Programming languages – Swift, Objective C (iOS), Java, Typescript (Android)
- Cloud Hosting – AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
- Content Management System (CMS) – WordPress, Drupal
e-Learning Application Development Cost
The cost of an e-Learning application development Company is dependent on multiple factors. The type of app, complexity level, region, the tech stack used, and the team involved as generally experienced team members give better results and charge higher than freshers.
The region where the app is launched also makes a significant difference in the budget. American and European countries have higher cost expenses as compared to Asian and Southeast Asian countries. It is essential to budget beforehand, keeping all these things in mind, and allocate resources wisely for online learning applications.
Conclusion
e-Learning apps have revolutionized education by offering accessibility, flexibility, and engaging content to learners worldwide. They cater to diverse learning needs and are applicable in various contexts, from formal education to corporate training and skill enhancement. Creating a successful e-Learning app involves careful planning, user-centric design, robust development, and continuous support. With the right approach and a well-defined strategy, e-Learning apps can unlock the future of education, making learning accessible and engaging for all.