How to Create an Educational App & How Much Does it Cost?

Undoubtedly, the COVID-19 outbreak revamped the traditional education system. Google Play and Apple’s App Store have reported the highest educational app downloads this quarter which is 466 million and 470 million, respectively.

Indeed, the Edtech industry is becoming the most promising market to invest in, raising the demand for educational app development. Google Classroom, edX, Khan Academy, and DuoLingo are some prominent names in the Edtech industry, proving their competency in the market with their e-learning products.

How to create an educational app?

The development process for educational apps is similar to most advanced applications. However, only expert developers and designers can turn an app idea into a reality with their excellent skill set.

Let’s learn about the entire application development cycle categorizing them into four simple phases.

Phase 1: Research & planning

In this phase, business analysts, marketers, and project managers analyze your vision for the application and advise accordingly.

• Conduct market research
• Determine project scope
• Define business model

Phase 2: Requirement collection & analysis

In this phase, features required to develop an application are determined and documented, and then a prototype is created accordingly. It helps developers and designers understand the app’s functional structure for each screen.

• Decide must-have features for an educational app
• Determine advanced technologies to meet future needs

Phase 3: Design & development

Mockup is created for the app to finalize the UI first during this phase, and the app architecture and tech stacks are defined to create an MVP or a full-fledged application. Here in the development stage, the focus is on coding, which includes frontend and backend development.

• Design UI
• Define the architecture & tech stack for educational application

The backend is written in Python with Django as a web application framework. In addition, it uses Elasticsearch for searching courses and the comments.

Key Components of LMS & Studio Architecture

1. It uses MongoDB and MySQL to store courses and learner data. Amazon S3 is used to stream videos uninterrupted.
2. Django is used for server-side coding and Mako for generating frontend templates, while client-side code is written in JavaScript and Backbone.js.
3. Open edX courses are modeled by XModules and XBlocks that come with APIs.
4. It has LTI tools that can be used to integrate other learning tools into an Open edX course.
5. JS Input is used to integrate JavaScript components into the course.
6. Comments is an IDA to manage the course discussion, written in Ruby, using the Sinatra framework.

• Create a minimum viable product (MVP)
• Develop a full-scale educational app

Phase 4: Testing & deployment

• Test the app
• Deploy the app

Estimated Cost to Build an Educational App

Determining the development cost of an application is tricky. It involves several factors such as the type of the educational app, project complexity, geographic location, platform compatibility, features & functionalities, tech stack, development time, etc.

How to make an educational app profitable? Monetization techniques

To earn profit through your developed edtech product, you must consider the monetization techniques mentioned below:

1. Freemium.
2. Subscription Fee.
3. Advertisements.

Engagement model for educational app development

To create an educational app, you need a development team that consists of:

• Project Manager/Product Manager
• UI/UX Designer
• iOS Developer/Android Developer.
• Backend Developer
• Quality Analyst

There are multiple ways you can get this workforce. You can:

1. Hire freelancers: Hiring freelancers is cheaper in comparison to other engagement models.
2. Outsource your app development need: After all, they have teams of expert developers, UX/UI designers, and testers who can create a high-quality app as per your business goals.
3. Hire a dedicated development team: In this model, app development companies provide a team of developers and designers to their clients who work as an extended team to deliver quality software with their expertise, adopting their clients’ work culture, methodologies, and best practices.

So, what’s next in the line?

Do you have an educational app idea or want to outsource your app development needs? If yes, then you’re at the right place. Please drop us a message or comment here to discuss your product idea or app requirement with us.

Originally published at Simform: How to Create an Educational App & How Much Does it Cost?