Presently education is not only limited to schools and universities, but with the aid of technologies, the rays of education have breached the handcuffs. Education has been made simpler than ever before with the involvement of mobile applications. Students or learners are now able learn something new at any point of time. ELearning applications enable more immersive and engaging ways for students and learners. With the advancement of technology, the eLearning sector is booming and will continue to boom with improving connectivity and educational applications that meet the needs of today’s globe.
As per statista, Estimates suggest that the global eLearning market is expected to reach 243 billion dollars by the year 2022. ELearning applications are the amongst the most popular categories on app stores. And you won’t believe there are over 80K education apps of all types into existence today.
What is eLearning?
With the support of modern technology, eLearning and mobile learning is a kind of online education which includes, education applications, online channels, courses, podcasts, blogs, online resources etc. eLearning is evolving the normal experience of learning, because of its simplicity, low cost, and user interface, it’s become the new normal way of learning and is extremely beneficial to learners.
Benefits of eLearning
- Flexible – Learner can choose time and place according to their preference.
- Continuous learning – Learners can study on the go.
- No age factor – Youth and even adults can enjoy the benefits of eLearning.
- Highly effective – Information can be grasped easily when presented in a concise way.
- Easy collaboration.
- Cheaper than traditional learning.
Why to invest in an eLearning application?
To start with, let’s have a sneak peak on the eLearning market, its trends, and big players.
- Well before worldwide lockdown due to pandemic, experts predicted that the global eLearning market share will rise to 325 billion dollars in 5 coming years.
- 81% of US college students say that eLearning technology is helping them to increase their grades.
- IBM saves 200 million dollars by switching towards eLearning.
- 43% of US college students say that digital learning is extremely helpful for them to do homework.
- The US and Europe have the majority of the house for eLearning business. However, others like Asia and pacific are now entering the game.
If you go with this, your possible competition could be: Coursera, Udemy, edX, Pluralsight, Skillsoft, sololearn, Udacity and plenty more.
Read More: Top eLearning platforms in 2021
Let’s clear things up, If you’re also looking to introduce an eLearning application that will be a real blast, include the features listed below, which would now only benefit enormously your users, but also your organizations.
Must have features for an Ideal eLearning application
1. Live tutorials and sessions
Live tutorials and Interactive sessions are one of the major characteristics of an eLearning application, allowing students to join their corresponding lecturers or faculty live lectures and teaching sessions if they’ve missed some. In contrast to offering live tutorial, one can create a virtual environment as a classroom with the aid of mobile apps, and by introducing chat now or raise hands students or learners can raise their questions and clarify their doubts. In contrast, a function of private teaching sessions, could also be introduced through which an user can schedule a private teaching session with their respective lecturers where they can raise their personal questions if any.
2. Push notification
The need for mobile apps is to include push alerts. It allows you to remain linked in a noninvasive manner to the users. Push notifications are a very efficient and productive feature. In so far as the eLearning application is important, it is indeed a must have feature. Primarily, it sends crucial updates to students and teachers if there is indeed a modification in the course and can also be used to give users notifications of their future sessions, to give small inspirational sayings, and last but not least to send them alerts of revisions. In addition to that, it also tells students about their class timings and occasions on which a specific topic will be discussed. All this pertinent knowledge even goes to the tutors as well.
3. Offline mode
The feasibility of a good internet connection can often be a concern, particularly in the internet bandwidth of places that are somewhat backward. So the application must be able to provide an offline mode in which the courses can be downloaded by learners. This will hold their engagement in your eLearning application active. Each course they download will provide you with detailed information about how successful the training app has become and how users respond to each module. This feature further assists in application alteration and course updates.
4. Custom experience
In mobile applications, customizations play a key role in improving the user experience, and for eLearning apps, targeted consumers are students and learners of all age categories. The success of an eLearning application depends primarily on the user’s customized experience. Across the learning process, the software needs to have choices such as mock assessments, reviews, changes and personalized learnings. If the application reacts as per the methods and manners of the user, the way they like, or their questions are answered as soon as possible. It will help to enhance the user experience.
Read More: Artificial Intelligence in Education: Benefits, Application and Development
5. Gamification
It is really important to gamify an eLearning application to reach the maximum user base and give them a better user experience. It’s easy to see how much comfort and excitement the students have for technology and games. There is enough study that indicates that with fun and game activities, learners learn more. Consequently, with achievement badges nothing finer than including balanced gamification in your virtual classroom. Badges help to inspire learners to take up the challenge of learning and conquer the very next tier. This feature aids in a student’s cognitive growth and improves the degree of interaction with the app.
6. Multilingual
Creating an application in multiple languages is strongly recommended as it will allow you to improve the readability of the students, users, learners, as well as the audience’s scope. If an application displays information in just one language, then the intended audience is restricted. Therefore, offering learning material in various languages, along with the comprehensibility of the students, will effectively expand the application’s user base.
7. Attendance management
Management is yet another essential aspect of an eLearning application that makes monitoring and marking the attendance of both learners and teachers a hassle-free activity. The teacher could see the attendance of a whole classroom in just one step or the attendance report of a specific student of a particular date with the aid of this function.
8. Dashboard
Nowadays, the participation of parents, teachers, and students are increasing on eLearning applications. The dashboard is the strongest element of an eLearning application for teachers. The dashboard provides data in graphical representations for better and faster analysis.
9. Lifetime Accessibility
That will be an unfortunate thing, if the course students paid for that doesn’t allow unlimited access for lifetime to the lesson’s videos. As learners can learn concerning their speed and intensity without limiting access to the course, they are willing to intervene for even more. In addition, you could also provide them with options for offline video downloads.
10. Advanced players
One of the key sources of new knowledge for students is video recordings. Indeed, your media player should be smooth and insightful. There might not be a secure internet link for certain users to view videos online. To assist them, you will enable the students to download the study material of course in different resolutions. It must enable users not just to play videos, pause or delay them. And also for controlling playback speed, add bookmarks, turn on subtitles, and last but not least changing the video resolution.
11. Course Recommendation
The choosing of the correct course is often a confusing job for learners. In particular, users would certainly face problems in making a choice when your platform has a large course library. If your application automatically suggests suitable courses to users in those kinds of circumstances, then there is a greater probability that they will go with proposed courses and actively engage with your eLearning application. Practically, a course recommender is a software service based on artificial intelligence that allows e-Learners to select a suitable course according to their choice and skill.
12. Tests and quizzes
Without any of the tools for assessing the skills and development of the learner, any eLearning application is unfinished. Although the role of alternative classrooms is increasingly played by en eLearning applications, there ought to be tests and assessments. Besides adopting the standard online test formats, eLearning applications can also facilitate quizzes to evaluate the grasp of learners or students on knowledge relevant to learning topics. Quizzes in various formats are incredibly important for eLearning applications related to children.
13. Discussion forum
You can allow an interaction channel between users of the application by introducing a public discussion channel in the eLearning app. Users can share their opinions on newer issues and can post their opinions and suggestions on presently offered topics. This is a very valuable charge for enhancing the user’s learning experience. In addition, the administrator tracks the comments to prevent any phishing-trailed contact.
14. Immersive content
Presently, the Play Store and App Store have a wide range of eLearning Applications available that ensures interactive learning for learners and students. The study material must be compelling to have the application downloaded many times. At a brief look, it needs to catch the user’s attention, here are few main factors that you really need to bear in mind:
- The content must be mobile friendly.
- The content must be focused on targeted audiences.
- To sustain the attention of the learner, the content should include interesting facts and stats.
- As every learner is not a fast learner, the content must be easy to understand and worth a read.
Final Words
Elearning is here to remain and is anticipated to continue to develop globally immensely. With competition in this space is growing intense, the winning strategy would be to deliver a hassle-free user experience with quality content. Your application is the foundation of your organization and, if the first move in this direction ensures you have the right eLearning application features. Along with basic features, we hope our list of 14 must have features will give you a massive jumpstart. If you have an idea in mind or are looking to hire an eLearning App Development Company for a project, then you must contact Matellio a leading eLearning app development firm. We’ll provide you top-notch, budget friendly solutions for your eLearning application idea.
For further information, visit our website www.matellio.com