Increasingly parents and schools are relying on technology for children’s education and mobile application development companies are delivering rich experiences through their products in this area. Popular digital education website like Khan’s Academy and the mobile application Byju’s that was recently taken over by Facebook are a strong case in point in favour of the many merits of education apps and the reach they have. The engaging nature of the application, the paces being set to the student’s learning speed and the revisit and recall factor all add to its many benefits in gaining popularity amongst children.
Mobile app development companies work in tandem with education institutions to create applications that use the experiential learning format to engage children as individuals and groups through activities. Android is the leading mobile operating system with over 1 billion applications in its app market, the Google Play Store. It has greater reach since the open source platform is available on smartphones, wearable device and tablets in multiple price ranges. This gives its market place greater reach among target audience for the applications worldwide.
We take a look at 5 features for literacy games on Android platform that can aid in creating a rich learning experience for kids.
1. Animation for engagement
Animated figures with lots of colours and multimedia engage students of all age group. With older students, the trend leans towards high quality original images and animating facts and figures so that they leap or zoom into prominence. This aids recalling the facts and also helps in understanding concepts. Background noises, music and even recorded voice clips augment the efficacy of the visual tools.
2. Games and Interaction
Instead of a question bank or tests with multiple choice questions, if the tests are presented as games, where user can challenge others or score themselves, like in quizzes, with prizes and levels they can cross, the entire learning session becomes interesting and engaging. The advantage of an application is students can work at their own pace and distract themselves by exploring various aspects of the application. If a game is added to the application it enables students to engage in the application and not just view it passively.
3. Use voice recordings, camera and other device feature for personalizing the experience
The mobile device features such as mike, camera, flash etc. can be used to extend the application features and creating a personalized user experience. For instance, a student can probably record a lesson in their own voice or scribble notes with a stylus pen on the side-line while reading text on the application. They can use the camera to feed their image for characters in a game or for an animated cartoon series among other things.
4. Integrate online merchandize shopping
A great way to extend an app version beyond in-app purchases is to create a store for selling merchandizes. Generally, literacy app development is deployed by education institutions and media houses that also have their line of merchandise. They can set an online store within the app and create offers that will be linked with the user’s progress in the application. For instance, an online education institute can offer students course packages with scholarships based on their competency in a quiz or puzzle on the app. Another method could be offering a merchandize on discount if the player crosses certain levels of the game.
5. Define the scope for skills to test
The scope of an application must be predefined in terms of what a user will learn and the skill sets the application will help the user develop in the course on engaging with the application. So, if some application aids memory or motor skills, this must be mentioned. Also
, it is essential to define not more than 4 or 5 skill sets so that neither the user nor the instructor is confused. One must seek to hire Android app developers who have nominal knowledge of instructions design to ensure that the application development goals are aligned with the overall aim of educating students correctly.Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com
