Complete Guide to EdTech Development

Complete Guide to EdTech Development The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way people study, comprehend, work, and interact with each other. Due to the pandemic, education has mainly transformed, with the unparalleled peak in e-learning, where teaching began remotely and on various digital platforms.

Since, EdTech offers a new method of learning and delivering education, skills, and communicating with others, it is predicted to reach more users.

Moreover, it has integrated into almost every educational institution.

EdTech is going to be the future of education. Developing innovative technology will educate anyone who desires to learn in creative, more significant, and promising ways.

Tables Of Content

● What is EdTech? ● Overview of EdTech Market ● How Has Online education Transformed during Covid-19 with EdTech Platforms? ● Types of EdTech Applications ● Must-Have Features in an EdTech App ● Types of EdTech Business Model ● Steps To Create an Edtech App ● How Can Businesses Earn From an EdTech Platform? ● How Much Does it Cost To Create an Edtech App?

What is EdTech?

Educational technology refers to EdTech in short. It is the use of tools for the procedure of learning. These tools can incorporate multiple types of content to provide text and written messages. It can be in the form of images, video conferencing, animations, audio recordings, visual recordings, computer-based learning, over the internet, and with educational software.

EdTech contains numerous fields of the educational approach. Its primary principles comprise the making of combined learning environments in which teachers from all over the globe help to teach, present, and educate students or working professionals.

Overview of EdTech Market The Research by Statista indicates that the online education market will grow to $243 billion by the end of 2022.

Research and Markets data provider forecasted that the global EdTech market would be around $398 billion by the end of 2026.

With all these investments coming in, the noteworthy part is that the money will be spent on AI-based learning tools, for example, virtual reality, whereas mobile learning tools will account for 15.9% of the investment.

How Has Online Education Transformed During Covid-19 With EdTech Platforms?

After lockdowns, schools and universities globally had to change to e-learning setup. Digital technologies had to be implemented into education, learning, and assignment methods. The COVID-19 pandemic came as a rescuer for the EdTech platform. It enhanced the methodology and brought a considerable transition to e-learning.

The number of educational application downloads soared globally in the first quarter of 2020. For example,470 million and 466 million educational apps were downloaded respectively in the App Store and Google Play.

Some of the most downloaded applications were Google Classroom and YouTube Kids.

The main reason for this dramatic increase was the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that has transformed from the old school teaching approach. It indicates that people are slowly starting to adopt learning with applications.

That resulted in the EdTech companies recognizing this market need and are filling the void by embarking on app development for the education industry.

Types of EdTech Applications mLearning mLearing stands for Mobile Learning. It is a new method to accessing learning content online utilizing mobile devices. The advantage of mLearning is that you can learn at your pace on your device.

EdTech Portal

Classrooms have advanced from the bulky desktops that were once the standard in the present world. With tablets’ live online courses, learners can easily access the desired information using EdTech portals. They can quickly get study material like notes, lectures, and assignments on EdTech mobile and web applications.

Personalized Learning App A personalized learning app is a mix of educational programs, learning experiences, instructional methods, and procedures planned to handle individual students’ specific learning needs. You can use graphics, improved UI, and development procedures to create impressive apps for learners.

Learning Experience Platform (LXP) Learning Experience Platform provides self-paced eLearning services for businesses where the platform will analyze learners’ past performance, reports, and behavior. These applications make learning modules comply with individual needs with the help of artificial intelligence.

Learning Management System (LMS) These apps provide content delivery and management system to corporate trainers and learners with a rich environment for executing hassle-free and result-oriented training. Enterprises can efficiently compile groups of learners using advanced automation tools.

BYOC

BYOC learning apps bring profitable results to enterprises by adding value to the learners’ education. It uses an innovative way of eLearning where learners get access to a complete and collective curriculum. The trend allows employees of an organization to use the cloud service.

Must-Have Features in an EdTech App

Communication

Fostering proper communication will help learners learn quickly. It will depend on the type of your EdTech application. You can implement communication attributes in your EdTech app. Here are some standard communication features that you can embed in your EdTech app.

● Audio and Video Conferencing

Most online learning platforms authorize students to have video conferencing with their tutors. It will give them a sense of authenticity and visual connection with the teachers. You must also ensure the implementation of an audio-only feature along with video conferencing.

● Instant Messaging

Instant messaging gives learners the ability to ask questions immediately.

Moreover, it saves enormous time and makes teachers more available to their students.

● Whiteboard

The objective of a whiteboard is to picture thoughts and write down concepts for both students and teachers. Online whiteboards can be used for similar goals as a real whiteboard, without the constraints of a real whiteboard.

● Forums

Forums allow students to interact with other students. It serves as a platform where discussion among the learners and teachers takes place on a bigger scale.

Assignments Tutors should have the capacity to allocate learners to work and evaluate that work from within your EdTech app. You can implement a few features in your EdTech platform for students to perform different activities, such as the followings:

● Task Assignment

Teachers will assign tasks to students and keep track of assignments themselves. You can add a to-do list for each student using a task management system.

● Progress Tracking

Progress tracking is a must-have feature for everyone, including students, educators, and mentors. It is vital to know the progress of students from time to time.

● File Sharing

There has to be a file-sharing feature in your EdTech app. It will help teachers to upload assignments in different file formats, i.e., PDF, MP4, .DOCX, JPEG, or any others. Moreover, students can also easily share essential project files, images, and course-related documents.

● Accessible Grading Reports

Students and parents will probably want to keep a record of grades. Your application will require adaptable and accessible data storage options.

Mock Test Mock test features help teachers to evaluate a student’s performance. You can add numerous mock test papers to gauge their knowledge and go paperless.

Group Mode for Working in Collaboration Your EdTech application should have a feature that supports group work.

For instance, students working in a group from a single device should add different answers to a particular question.

An essential feature is an auto-save mode. It is effective when an assignment is shared between many students. Besides, you should log in with multiple profiles in the app simultaneously.

Intuitive UI/UX features An EdTech portal should deliver complete user information with intuitive UI/UX design. It can only be achieved if the app is user-friendly and designed impressively. The students and educators should quickly check their attendance, assignments, quizzes, recorded sessions, schedules, manage class timings effortlessly and upload and edit user databases, etc.

AI and AR in EdTech Apps

Artificial intelligence and augmented reality help learning, entertainment, and education simultaneously. Students get bored during the online learning process. Therefore, AI and AR can be beneficial. For example, students might point their camera at a flower which will show details on its formation process.

Easy Search The easy search option will allow students to effortlessly search for projects, essential documents, courses, and files. It will permit learners to search for any query related to their curriculum.

Privacy and Security Privacy and security are the most critical features of an EdTech application.

The app must comprise robust security to build trust and loyalty. It contains users’ data and addresses, individual details, bank details, credit/debit card details, etc.

Gamification It’s a way of making the application engaging. Apps are gamified, for example, levels reached, points earned, leaderboard, badges, performance charts, scoreboards, dynamic analytics dashboards, etc.

Self-Pace Mode Many learners count heavily on online tutoring platforms to upskill themselves and succeed in their careers in this fast-paced world. You can record and upload live sessions for such individuals in your EdTech app

and make the course available. Self-pace mode helps learners access the sessions, notes, lectures when they get time.

Types of EdTech Business Models Free Trials To establish in the EdTech business market and compete with your peers, you can first provide users with free app trials and give a more advanced plan as your app gain more audience. It is an alluring model for startups as it permits you to build trust in your brand and gradually evolve as a niche leader.

Paid Subscription When the trial period ends, users either stop using your application, uninstall it or buy an upgraded plan. Most users will stay as your faithful customers if you give helpful service. It suggests that users will only pay if they are benefitted from the app and eventually subscribe. However, you must charge a small one-time payment for your primary plan and then increase the price subsequently.

EdTech Marketplace EdTech Marketplace is a platform and an effective business model where developers can earn money by providing educational content and taking a percentage of their earnings. That is why the EdTech marketplace is famous, but it needs proper knowledge.

The EdTech platform provides many third-party courses from enterprises and individuals that deliver a wide range of monetized studying materials.

You can find various courses related to academic, technical, and ethical hacking courses, communication, entrepreneurship, management, personality development course, and other professional skills.

Institutional Model It is a conventional business model which follows a top-down approach.

The business concept is relatively easy. You have to just pitch your course modules to universities, colleges, schools, private institutions, and course designers.

However, the institutional model has a more significant impact on big enterprises than individuals. Nonetheless, this model might need a large workforce doing the groundwork and visiting every institution and organization to scale.

Organization/B2B Sales Organization or B2B sales is also a top-down process that operates if you work in B2B and organization management niches. If you are going for this model, you will have to pitch or sell your product to decision-makers within big organizations.

It usually has a fixed period and comes with a renewal package at the end of the year. You will get two-sided benefits with this approach. Firstly, you will get projects for earning initial revenue, and secondly, long-term partnerships to deliver high-quality content.

Steps To Create an Edtech App Identify Target Audience and the Issues to Solve Before going ahead, ask this question who is your target audience, and who is likely to buy your product? If you have an idea to make educational applications for kids, remember that your users are children; however, parents or guardians will purchase your product. And, if you build an EdTech app development service for schools, customers are usually government establishments while the users are students and teachers.

The other point you need to consider is what issues your app solves for your clients? A good eLearning course resolves issues the customers encounter with other apps or may face in the upcoming times. A responsive feature-packed application would make it more comfortable for students to operate on any device.

Do Comprehensive Market Research To create an EdTech application that stands out from the crowd and fulfills your customers’ requirements, you have to do comprehensive market research.

● Research Your Competitors

Analyze your peer competitors and market leaders of similar EdTech products. For which organizations does your target audience go? What are the selling techniques they are adopting or know about their offers?

● Analyze What Your Competitors are Doing Correctly

You must do a complete R&D about them and ask a few questions like what’s the USP of their courses? However, while doing an in-depth analysis, identify what is lacking in their EdTech products. Not only will this data enable you to stay practical, but also provide those missing pieces in your eLearning modules.

Identify Position In EdTech Sector EdTech market is vast and has cut-throat competition. Therefore, you have to identify your position in the market. To be a leader in the eLearning business, you have to think outside the box and make a product that differentiates it from other products and appeals to the customers in a similar niche.

Check If Your Industry is ScalableAre people interested in your EdTech service to make it scalable as well as profitable?

Select a Clear Business ModelComplex products often fade out because users can not associate with them. You need to be sure what type of product you will sell. Whom are you going to sell, individuals or business enterprises, teachers, or schools? Will it be only content-based or technology-based?

Create Company ProfileIt will make the company recognizable, assist in conveying the essence of your business, and attract new customers.

Decide How to Create Your EdTech App

There are mainly three methods to create an EdTech application-

● Application Builder-

There are many ready-made app builder software available in the market.

They may appear a very affordable choice as you can build an educational app without coding. Nonetheless, these solutions come with significant disadvantages that include the incapacity to create something extraordinary, security problems, maintenance issues, lagging, low-performance speeds, and much more.

● Build an in-house Team-

To gain a competitive advantage in the market as an EdTech company, you will require an entire team of professionals such as

● Project Manager to define your requirements. ● Android and iOS developers to build customer-centric and lightweight apps ● UX/UI designers create intuitive, responsive, and user-friendly apps. ● You will need Testers and QA developers to provide a flawless app experience.

Creating an in-house team and finding these experts can take long, and also you need to spend massive investment in the recruitment phase itself.

Apart from that, you have to pay office rent to purchase various things like

hardware and software, but still, there is no assurance that your in-house team will operate according to your business plans.

● Hire an Experienced EdTech App Development Company-

When you finally decide to take the help of EdTech development services, past performance and clientele matter the most. You must check organization portfolios, ratings, and user reviews. A professional EdTech development company will have transparent policies, cost estimations, an easy delivery management process, project deadlines, and after-sales customer support.

Most Popular EdTech Apps Examples

edX App Category: EdTech Portal

Established in 2012, edX is a nonprofit and online learning platform founded by Harvard University. It provides 3000+ courses and has a 40 million user base. Students can avail courses on the edX platform for free, however, they will need to pay charges to access exams and verified certification.

Coursera App Category: Marketplace Coursera is an online eLearning platform that provides learners access to self-paced and on-demand courses on various subjects and even degrees.

It was founded by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller in 2012. Coursera does not develop educational content. Instead, the company collaborates with universities and other institutions to deliver online platforms that learners pay to access.

It has a 92 million user base. The company presents more than 4,300 courses and 30+ certificates programs. You can quickly go through this guide and create an app like Coursera for your EdTech startup.

Chegg App Category: Online Assignment Portal The company was founded in 2005; Chegg is an American EdTech company located in California. It delivers online tutoring, textbooks, physical textbook rentals, subject matter expert, and other student services.

Chegg has 2.9 million subscribers till March 2020.

LinkedIn Learning App Category: Self-Paced Learning Portal

Previously known as Lynda.com was incorporated in 1995. LinkedIn Learning is an eLearning online platform that provides on-demand courses and video-based content. The platform delivers 16,000+ courses divided mainly into three categories technology, business, and creative.

There are many subcategories available in every category. They provide 34 certification courses and have more than 27 million users.

Google Classroom App Category: Virtual Classroom Released in 2014, Google Classroom is a free integrated eLearning platform designed by Google for educational organizations. It integrates various google services for education, like Google Docs, Google Sheets, Gmail, and Google Calendar, into a coherent platform to simplify communication between students and educators. The primary purpose of Google Classroom is to create, distribute and grade assignments. It has 150+ million users globally.

Byju’s App Category: AR-Based eLearning Portal Established in 2011 by Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath is an Indian EdTech educational company based in Bangalore. It provides engaging and compelling eLearning solutions globally. The company has an over 115 million user base. If you are an education-based startup or EdTech company looking to create an app like Byju’s, you must read a comprehensive app development guide.

How Can Businesses Earn From an EdTech Platform?

There are different ways EdTech platforms can monetize and earn, for example-

Pay-out After the course gets over, the admin of the EdTech platform charges a special Pay-out for that course. The Pay-out is the most famous revenue model.

Ads & Promotions Everything will be accessible in the trial version, however, you can display ads, pop-ups and promote specific products to those who take courses.

You can also monetize by showing banners as well.

Cancellation Fees When any student or even professional cancels the courses before completing the course, you can levy a specific amount as a cancellation fee. You can also have a tutor-based strategy, where you can give some amount of cancellation fee to the tutor.

In-app Purchases In-app purchases are the most fruitful way to make money in eLearning platforms. You can sell added features and courses.

Personalized Learning Experience Being an EdTech app development company, you can offer a personalized learning experience to learners by analyzing their behavior. These fantastic personalized learning tools help teachers put each student first by providing focused and goal-driven learning. Moreover, you can charge extra for providing a customized learning experience.

How Much Does it Cost To Create an Edtech App? Estimating the cost of hiring an EdTech or eLearning development company can be critical because it depends on certain factors, for example, choice of the technology stack, project timeline, kinds of features you offer, the complexity of the application, operating system, etc. If you are building on a cross-platform, it will not be quick and responsive. However, creating a cross-platform application costs less, and if you have a tight budget, it will be a better choice.

The cost to create an EdTech app will range from $12,000 to $75,000 and more, as it will rely on your business requirements and needs. You can also contact the EdTech app development firm to determine your app’s requirements, cost estimation, and project timeline.

How Can We Help You? Do you want to create an Edtech application? Let’s build it together.

Sparx IT Solutions delivers end-to-end app development services to clients across the globe. We focus on building quick but scalable products from startups to large enterprises. The team of professional developers and

project managers has assisted thousands of clients in creating and releasing their products.

Rather than acquiring different developers, designers, and app product managers, we help clients hire dedicated and experienced professionals who know their business objectives and work from the beginning to the completion of the project.

It is a leading EdTech and eLearning app development company with years of experience creating rich and intuitive apps. We build apps for iOS, Android, or web portals, moreover, help you at every phase of your education app development.

Final Thoughts As the world is still struggling and fighting with the COVID-19 pandemic, online education is more appropriate than ever. The EdTech industry is skyrocketing, and the competition is fierce. However, there is a lot of work to do in the EdTech industry. It has ample opportunities for beginners, startups, and enterprises with new ideas. If you have a bright idea of improving and simplifying the eLearning process, it is time to make your educational application and present it to the world.

New EdTech applications encounter many challenges, so schedule the launch accordingly. Identify your niche, conduct thorough market research, choose a monetization model, outline your positioning, and hire an experienced app development company to create innovative, intuitive, and feature-packed EdTech applications.