‘’APP’’lying Ourselves to Education

With a rather tumultuous start to the New Year, I presume many such as myself, had a similarly optimistic, yet incredibly na?ve wish; that by simply entering 2021, we would exit 2020 into a life similar to that of 2019.

Alas, this is not the case, as I sit here at my makeshift desk within the grips of a new UK lockdown. Whilst this set up might not be ideal for people who work within the same industry as myself, you and I can still work. What has become apparent though, is that many of those within education system, both teachers and students alike, are struggling from the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed Alice Bernard, CEO of Edge Foundation surmised it perfectly, saying ‘’ the impact of the coronavirus will be one of the defining features of a whole generation of British children’’. [1]

COVID, Schools and Technology?

The relationship between COVID-19 and the educations system was assessed by UNECSO, and it revealed that during the height of school closures, due to the pandemic, more that 1.5 billion learners were affected, making some 90% of students worldwide.[2] Furthermore, during this period in the UK, we saw an almost universal shift to home-schooling, and subsequent digitised learning after March 2020. A study by the Edge Foundation on how many hours of remote lessons per day, per pupil, teachers would estimate that their school was providing by June 2020, showed that an average of 18% had 1-2 hours, 54% had 3-5 hours and 15% attained over 5 hours a day; and shockingly 13% had 'none' or 'didn't know'.[3]

The Edge Foundation concluded in their report that amongst other things, ‘’the coronavirus outbreak highlighted the vital importance of technology for learning. When schools re-open, children will continue to need digital resources for independent research, homework, and projects, to learn the skills they need for the workplace. Discussion across many sectors have focused on the ‘new normal’ post-pandemic. In education, this could be the catalyst for making a transformational leap forward, changing the way we learn and the way in which learning is delivered forever, fully integrating new digital technology; but ensuring that we do not leave disadvantaged young people behind.’’[4]

How best to digitise?

With this new normal, hopefully, coming soon into play; the education system and the technology industry must come together to understand how they can bridge this learning gap for the benefit of children.

The key principle for this will be making a product which is easily understood by all ages and yet harnesses' the ability to transfer knowledge successfully. When one is tasked with thinking about how to get to this ideal end point, the sensical solution is to provide education through a technical system that children know best; this being through App’s.

Why the use Apps you might ask?

It wasn’t too long ago we were being told that kids shouldn’t spend as much time on their digital products and to get up and go outside! However, this narrative has changed, not in the least due to COVID-19. In the UK there has been widespread adoption of these devices throughout the ‘noughties’ and ‘twenty-tens’. As of 2019 83% of 12-15 year olds had a smart-phone, 49% of 8-11 year olds had a tablet and 37% of 5-8 year olds also had a tablet.[5] Moreover, by March 2020 the Government announced that over 200,000 devices had already been handed out as part of an initial scheme to promote digital learning for those who did not have access to the aforementioned products, with an intended 150,000 more to be given on the horizon, through a ￡2 million grant scheme.[6]

Now, it is not my intention to comment on whether or not the government is providing enough, or even look to analyse the socio-economic state of the country and discuss why the government needed to provide these in the first place. I simply write to say, that with the population being driven towards a digital learning template; it appears to me, that the development of ‘Apps’ is the way forward to promote learning in this ‘new normal’ world we will live in.

The benefits of Apps

I’m sure many will agree that one of the key problems they have found with home-learning for their children and/or even for themselves, was maintaining a level of concentration and limiting outside distractions.

Apps themselves, are actually perfect for reducing these distractions, as they encourage the user to concentrate strictly on them. This is done through their immersive interfaces, interactive objectives and quick-time responses. It doesn’t take a mathematician to point out that 2 + 2 = 4, and this simple analogy can be used with Apps.

Kids, especially younger children, struggle to direct their attention at one sole object for sustained periods of time… yet we often see them able to ‘game’ for inordinate periods undistracted. Apps can provide this colourful and fun experience similar to ‘gaming’ as the first ‘2’ and also add the educational aspect as the second ‘2’, to allow us to reach the conclusion of children remaining focussed and also learning.

A live case-study of this can be shown with the Hungry Caterpillar Play School App (https://storytoys.com/app/hungry-caterpillar-play-school/). This App, teaches a wide variety of key early learning lessons whilst also being a strong enabler for kids education.

Another beauty of theses App for the learning market is that they can traverse across the age spectrum. The above case-study was conveniently aligned to benefit younger children. But this isn’t to say that teenagers and even adults cannot benefit from Apps. Take Duolingo for instance, the worlds leading App for teaching languages. This App is used by a wide variety of age groups with 46% of Duolingo app owners being between the ages of 26 to 45 years old.[7] Moreover, it has over 13 million UK users, an increase of 132% of users from December 2019 to December 2020.[8]

What this shows us is that not only do educational apps have a large market place for a wide variety of ages, but they are also in-line with what people want right now. It is all well and good having a product or solution that will benefit people; but getting them to realise they need or should use it is sometimes the stumbling block. A similar concept can be applied to getting people to take medication… However, this does seem to be an issue within the educational app sphere, which is a big relief for developers.

Caution nefarious motives

I do want to highlight one aspect I think we need to be cautious of with the adoption of Apps into the education system. As many will be aware, WhatsApp recently updated its privacy laws to include in verbatim, “as part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, this family of companies,” [9] This has sparked fear into people as to what their data can and will be used for. With the hypersensitivity around data protection, it is important as App Developers that we do not allow our App users within the educational space to have their data infringed for any nefarious purposes. Perhaps the most important reason above all for this, is because our target audience is overwhelmingly minors.

Conclusion

The educational app development sphere is a very exciting space to be within. Coupled with the fact that there is state sanctioned investment into the digitisation of these products, it could not only be very lucrative for developers; but for me personally, I feel it could be exceptionally beneficial to huge swathes of society that have felt left out or disenfranchised by the results of COVID-19 on their educational development.

Written by: Oliver Gannon

Co-Founder of B-enableD

[1] https://www.edge.co.uk/sites/default/files/documents/covid-19_report_final_-_web.pdf (page 1)

[2] https://www.edge.co.uk/sites/default/files/documents/covid-19_report_final_-_web.pdf (page 18)

[3] https://www.edge.co.uk/sites/default/files/documents/covid-19_report_final_-_web.pdf (page 21)

[4] https://www.edge.co.uk/sites/default/files/documents/covid-19_report_final_-_web.pdf (page 51)

[5] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51358192

[6] https://schoolsweek.co.uk/coronavirus-aet-to-spend-2m-on-laptops-as-others-call-for-tech-donations/

 [7] https://www.inmobi.com/blog/2020/04/06/who-uses-apps-to-learn-a-new-language

[8] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55562267

[9] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/whatsapp-new-privacy-terms-facebook-rules-explained-b1784469.html