‘Let’s face it. Internet is not designed for iPhone’
More than a decade ago, Steve Balmer, Microsoft’s former CEO had made this comment on the internet for mobile devices. And since then, we have seen revolutionary changes. We can not only access the internet on mobile apps but do a whole lot of things. And in recent years, because of the Pandemic, we are seeing a sudden emergence of school apps. There have been many mobile apps for schools before Pandemic. But during the precarious time, mobile apps surged. A whole new industry of educational platforms has evolved.
Are Mobile Apps For School Profitable? Yes, They Are.
Children undertaking educational courses on mobile devices seems unbelievable to most parents. If you give a gadget to a child, the obvious is for them to play with it. But things changed after the Pandemic. In pre-pandemic times, only optional courses or extra-curricular courses were on educational platforms. There was a school that aided the essential education for students. After the Pandemic, this notion changed entirely. Enrolling children to expensive schools when they will be taking classes online was meaningless. Many educational platforms came up that taught traditional ‘educational’ courses in revolutionary ways.
It is way more engaging than traditional classrooms. And that leads to an increase in the number of users worldwide. The potential is vast. Educational apps will grow at a CAGR of 26% by 2024. If you are thinking of tapping into this market, this is the right time to do so.
Top Ranking Educational Apps
What more evidence do you need than already existing educational apps that are reaping in benefits? Check out these top 10 mobile apps for schools having millions of users and a positive turnover rate.
- Duolingo – An American language learning website and mobile app with over 500 million users. It uses a freemium model where you have to pay for premium services. For dabblers, it is a good choice to learn languages without paying for them. What sets it apart is that it is easy and fun to use, and overall it works for the users.
- Photomath – A school app for students that uses a smartphone’s camera to scan and recognize math questions. It also provides a step-by-step solution to the problem. It has over 220 million downloads and over 2 billion mathematical problems solved with the app.
- Google Classroom – A free application for creating, distributing, and grading assignments. It is a homework app for schools. This app is for teachers and students to share documents.
- Kahoot! – A game-based learning platform used in schools and teaching institutions. It uses quizzes and interactive games to teach. It has over 50 million monthly active users.
- Remind – A communication platform for teachers to reach out to students and parents. It has over 10 million users and is safe to use without disclosing personal contact information.
- Class Dojo – A communication platform for teachers, students, and parents with over 10 million users.
- U-Dictionary – A translation and dictionary app with over 100 million downloads.
- Brainly – A peer-to-peer learning platform where students can ask homework questions to teachers. It has over 100 million downloads.
- Canvas Student – A platform where students access their groups, submit assignments, participate in discussions, view grades and course materials. It has over 10 million downloads.
- Mathway – It is a problem-solving resource for teachers, students, and parents. It has over 10 million downloads.
How To Monetize Mobile Apps For School?
There are many school apps for free in google play store and AppStore. Most of them have freemium and premium services. A fascinating concept with ease of use makes the app attractive to students.
- Pay-per-course – make the app available for free and charge for the courses subscribed. You can provide free lessons for a few segments or give demo lessons.
- Subscription – Give premium benefits of the app with a subscription. Provide some services for those who have subscribed for the paid services.
- Freemium – Provide courses but charge for getting certification or diploma.
- Paid Services – Keep most services free of cost and provide additional services for an extra charge. For instance, for your homework apps for schools, provide services like creating and submitting for free. For grading and reviewing, let the teachers pay for the additional services.
- Sales of goods and services – Charge for notes and question sets. You can also charge for services like clarifying doubts.
- Ads – Don’t bombard your audience with ads since you get money for paying ads. Your users will abandon you because of excess ads. Keep the ads minimum and not invasive. Charge your customers for removing ads.
- An even better way is to tie up with schools and educational institutions to make the apps accessible for the students.
How To Build Educational Apps?
Now, you know how lucrative this new business sounds. Next is for you to develop a high-class app to reap in benefits. So, how will you build a mobile app for schools? Here’s how.
Discovery
The first step to developing your educational mobile app is discovering your big idea.
- Find a Gap – There are plenty of school apps, learning apps, fun and game-based apps, all targeted at students. Try to find a gap that has not been covered. Find creative and engaging ideas to improve the existing platform. Look at various similar platforms and try to identify the gaps and make use of those gaps.
- What Audience Needs Most – After finding the gaps, check out the viability of that idea. Does the audience even need that big idea of yours? Is it feasible? Is it viable? Try to identify the pain point of the audience and capitalize on it. Students and teachers needed a secure platform to communicate with each other without giving out their contact information. That need was dealt with with the new classroom-friendly communication apps. There was a need for creating an interactive learning process to understand the otherwise drab learning course. Many apps popped up to meet these demands. There were many demographics, niches, and requirements that are still not utilized. Try to find these and define your core.
- Be different and engaging – To set yourself apart from the plethora of apps in the store, you need to be different and tap the emotions of your potential client. App users are fickle. They have plenty of options to choose from and only an upward swipe to uninstall undesired apps. Only by being unique can you attract the attention of your audience. And then the rest depends on how your app is user-friendly and overall how functional it is.
Prototyping
Now that you have found the core value with which you can build your app and grow your audience, you need a prototype. You have the idea, the knowledge of your audience, channelize these to design a prototype. Choose a design appealing to your target audience. Make a basic layout that will show the features of your app. You don’t need to know apps or any business degree to make a prototype. Get down to pen and paper and draw a rough layout of how your app will look. You can put features that you think should be in your app. Remove unnecessary features or buttons that do not fit your requirements.
Make sure your prototype can reflect the core value of your app. Suppose you are making a game-based educational platform for solving maths questions. Maths is a dull concept for 90 percent of kids. And those who find Maths interesting will also admit that the teaching process of Maths is very dreary. To make your app a hit, you will need to introduce engaging concepts to appeal to children. Gamify your app. Make your app a level-based game, or even with an RPG theme. Keep your idea original and appealing from the aspect of your audience.
Development
Next comes the technical part. That is to develop your app. If you are a developer, you can put your knowledge of Kotlin, Java, WebRTC, and all the geeky stuff Next comes the technical part. That is to develop your app. You can develop an app for android, iOS, or enterprise. In this case for schools. Do you know developing an android app is considerably cheaper than iOS and enterprise apps? If you are a developer, you can put your knowledge of Kotlin, Java, WebRTC, and all the geeky stuff to use. You can pull in your tech buddies and build a profitable app. Or you can hire a team of developers to aid with your mobile app development. You can build an amazing android mobile app for schoolwork or an iOS mobile app for communication.
Outsourcing an app development agency or freelancer is not a very expensive option. If you are an up-and-coming business with a low budget, you can still get your app made at an affordable cost. How much does it cost to make educational apps? $10,000 to $50,000 or even more.
Building an app needs a team of developers from the initial planning to the execution of the app. You will need a
- Business Analyst – The one who will devise the feasibility of your idea and make sure the idea comes to fruition.
- Project Manager – The one who devises a plan and sets all the tasks to motion. They manage all the crucial steps of app development.
- Front-end & Back-end Developer – The technical part of app development. This team of developers uses various technology stacks like Python, Java, Swift, etc.
- UX/UI Designer – This team takes care of the look and feel of your app. A better design will bring in your audience. They will stay because of the user-friendly interface and also because the app helps.
- QA engineer – After making the app, you will need quality assessment engineers who will check the quality of your app before releasing it to the audience. They will make sure your app is up to mark by fixing bugs and crashes.
Deployment
The last step is the deployment of the app. Launch the app after taking the A/B test. Do a stress test after the launch. Also, take feedbacks to continue making your app better.
Mobile App development is a complex process, and a successful app needs an expert team. Hire and consult experts to develop a high-quality and lucrative educational app.