From giving consent for kid’s participation in various activities, saving exam dates in the phone’s calendar, paying schools fees, checking teacher’s remarks and test performance. There are several features that these apps have in store.
• Access to a wealth of information at all times
These days almost all the high-school students have access to smartphones and tablet PCs. Thus, schools from around the world are urging pupils to use them for accessing information on various subjects rather than merely using the device for accessing social networking sites. Simply put, gone are the days when students visited the library for finding information, data.
Schools around the world have developed mobile apps that have access to hundreds of e-books in the digital library. Students can easily find the study material that is relevant to them. Soon, there would be no need to buy hard-copies or search study material on the internet.
Even education ministries in developing countries like India and Africa are trying to reduce the burden of heavy textbooks that kids end up carrying to school each day. Mobile applications make sure that children get access to a wealth of information at all times, even while on the go.
• Reduces the communication gap between students and teachers
While at the school, teachers often find it difficult to give equal time to all the pupils in the class. With apps and web-based forums, professors can reach out to every student and ensure they get all their doubts clarified even while away from the classroom.
The features loaded in such apps help parents remain aware of their kid’s performance and behavior while at school. Studies have already proved how the parent’s involvement in school activities impacts the pupil’s classroom behavior. The app caters to the needs of parents, teachers, school administration and students alike.
• Smartphones as a learning platform
Smartphones are blamed for impacting concentration and engagement percentage in studies. Now, technology is helping schools to use the same devices as a learning platform.
The traditional textbook learning is slowly being replaced by apps that offer interactive quizzes and informative videos that make learning easier. Some educational institutions also provide weekly podcasts for pupils to promote the revision of topics that were covered in the classroom throughout the week.
Thanks to apps, students can download a wealth of assessment questions on each subject. Such practice of solving quizzes helps in broadening knowledge.
• Apps can help schools to promote the use of gamification in education
The benefits of mobile apps in education are not just limited to sharing data between parents and teachers. Mobile software can be used for helping students to learn quickly with the help of podcasts and games.
It’s a well-known phenomenon that individuals try to show their best performance while playing games as they are motivated and continuously engaged in the same. Thus, using games for education helps in applying the same motivation while learning.
Gamification has helped in achieving an exceptional level of engagement in studying and solving problems within a short period. Application developers can help schools to get the best out of gamification in education.
Games help in improving problem-solving capabilities and promote strategic thinking among children. It encourages accuracy and logical thinking which can assist kids in their later life.
Studies have already proved that game-based learning can be beneficial for children suffering from attention disorders.
• Apps for improving parent-teacher communication
Teachers often find it difficult to give sufficient time for every guardian during the parent-teacher meeting. Thus, in-app instant messaging between teachers and parents make life easy for both.
Micro-communities (like forums) can be created for discussion on various issues. Students can seek help from others besides teachers to get answers for their concerns. Administrators can ensure teachers have full control over the app data so that message history, forum topics can be archived.
One of the school mobile app features is the ability to track the child’s attendance reports for any given week or month. Besides attendance tracking, the app can also offer a real-time status for the student’s bus location. Various state governments have already made it mandatory to install GPS tracking on all the school buses, vans. The same GPS data can be made available to parents via the school’s mobile application.
• Singapore happens to be the first government to embrace the use of apps
Singapore, the world’s ideal smart city model, happens to be the first country to introduce an official app for schools to communicate with parents.
In January this year, Singapore’s Ministry of Education and Government Technology Agency launched a mobile application called Parents Gateway app. It helps in improving the link between parents and the school administrators.
The authorities intend to offer it to parents from all the public and private schools by the end of this year. As of now, it is available for parents from a few schools that are a part of the pilot programme. Overall, 66 schools are a part of this initiative as per the ministry of education.
Ong Ye Kung, Singapore’s minister for education, launched the app and stressed on the point that it’s a single platform that can be used by parents from multiple schools in the country.
The application is a part of Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative. The minister claimed its trials had proved the ability to reduce the administrative work that teachers have to perform, and thus, would help them focus on teaching.
Functions in the application are set to increase every month during the trial phase. Parents can use the Android or iOS version of the app and sign-in with the help of Singapore’s OneKey, SMS 2FA, or SingPass account.
What is educational ERP or school management software? It is the software that manages and automates almost all the administrative and financial tasks of the organization. Mobile applications can be easily integrated with the existing school web software. To get an overview of the school management application and school erp modules that can work with the app, you can surely connect with engineers at MyEdu. Their team has worked with multiple schools in India and abroad.
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