Educational App Development

𝐈 𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦 𝐟𝐨𝐫 10,000+ 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 As an undergraduate and mobile developer, I implemented a CGPA calculator for every programming language I was learning, it was kind of like my "Hello World" for any new language I picked up . This helped me keep track of my progress in learning the skills as well as my academic grades. For many students, tracking grades, calculating CGPAs, and setting academic goals is overwhelming. Questions like: What grades do I need to hit my target? Can I still achieve honors? What would be my CGPA if I get a B in X and Y courses? …are all too common. As an undergraduate and mobile developer, I noticed how widespread this problem was. Most students didn’t only struggle with the calculations, but they also didn’t understand the why behind their grades or how to plan for success. To solve this, I collaborated with the Google Developer Students Club, Babcock to create 𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝘀, an app specifically for Babcock University students.  Here is what it does: 1. 𝗖𝗮𝗹𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗖𝗚𝗣𝗔𝘀 quickly and accurately. 2. 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲𝘀 to predict academic outcomes. 3. Allows students to 𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝘀𝗲𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹𝘀. 4. Keeps you 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿. StudyStats is live on the Apple and Google Play Stores (check the comments for the links), helping students take control of their academic progress effortlessly. Here are 4 Lessons for Developers: 1. 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝘀: Pay attention to pain points people face, no matter how small. In this case, understanding CGPA calculations was a common struggle for students. 2. 𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗨𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲: Simplicity and usability are key. Students needed a tool that was easy to use and accessible. 3. 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁: Partnering with the Google Developer Students Club amplified the app’s reach and made implementation seamless. 4. 𝗔𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗕𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳: I didn’t build this app for personal use. It was designed to solve a general issue. Always aim for solutions that have broader impact. Innovation starts with identifying a problem and ends with making life easier for others. What’s the next problem you’ll solve? 𝐈’𝐦 𝐚 𝐦𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐲 𝐚 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥-𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲.

Deisigning for Education with Artificial Intelligence: An Essential Guide for Developers Executive Summary: This guide by the U.S. Department of Education provides essential insights and structured guidance for developers creating #AItechnologies in #education. It emphasizes responsible, safe, and equitable AI development aligned with #educationalgoals to build trust among #stakeholders in the #educationalecosystem, including #developers, #educators, and #students. Key Recommendations: 1. Designing for Education: Developers are advised to align their AI solutions with educational values, ensuring that AI supports human-centric, teaching, and learning goals. The guide stresses incorporating educators’ and students’ feedback throughout the design and implementation phases, promoting ethical, transparent, and inclusive AI. 2. Providing Evidence of Impact: To build trust, AI developers should base their designs on evidence of educational effectiveness and continuously monitor impact, especially for underserved groups. Clear documentation of rationale, impact assessment, and outcomes is recommended, with emphasis on disaggregated data to assess inclusivity and equity in performance. 3. Advancing Equity and Civil Rights: The guide calls for active steps to mitigate bias and algorithmic discrimination, ensuring that AI tools promote fairness and accessibility, particularly for marginalized and vulnerable groups. Developers are encouraged to understand and comply with federal civil rights regulations, embedding these principles into AI product development. 4. Ensuring Safety and Security: Safety in data handling, privacy protection, and security are emphasized as critical for AI in educational settings. The guide highlights the need for robust safeguards to protect users’ information and for transparent mechanisms that users can trust. 5. Building Transparency and Trust: The importance of open communication, clear reporting, and accountable practices is stressed to foster trust. Developers are urged to maintain transparency around their AI processes and be proactive in addressing potential risks and issues related to AI deployment. This guide underscores a collaborative approach, urging developers to work with educational stakeholders to ensure that AI technology is safe, ethical, and truly beneficial to diverse educational communities.

We might have experiences with products that are over-engineered with too many features. We thought to ourselves - can we "under-engineer" instead? Whenever we share new EdTech tools with colleages, we get common responses such as "this is very difficult to set up!", "where is the verification code?", and "why are there so many buttons?" just to name a few. So we spoke to teachers and realised that most of the time we don't need to store the data from our formative quizzes as we just need a tool to help us make quick decisions in class. And although we plan our lessons, we might have new questions that we create on the fly to decide how to steer the lesson in a certain way. Put simply, a lesson evolves along the way. What this means is that we probably don't need sophisticated apps that have log in pages, student accounts, music, data storage etc. Why not even remove the function to upload questions? So we decided to challenge ourselves - can we create a tool that takes a maximum of 3 clicks to get started (including opening the app). One more click is a click too much! In this demo, I show "MCQ-lite", a tool that allows a teacher to start the app with a QR code for students to join, select the number of options, then start quiz. The teacher can do a simple poll, then move on with the lesson. Then at specific junctures, send another question. The questions? The teachers can say it out or just show a screenshot (we usually take a screenshot and upload them anyway). As some teachers might be interested in data, we allow for downloading of post-quiz data too! Since we are here, why not also think: 1) Can we also collect short answer responses in real time? 2) Since the teacher is already asking the question, why not use voice transcription to also capture the question? 3) What if we have a permanent QR code in every classroom where we can start our formative assessment straight away? #EdTech #educationaltechnology

💭Some reflections today on developing the EduSpots app.... 🔷 For some context, the key problem our app aimed to solve was the challenges we have in tracking Spot learners, Catalysts, opening hours, resource borrowing and more! We wanted to devise a simple system for local information collection. 💡The idea is that this will enable us to have a live dashboard, reflecting all the current learners and Catalysts in Spots, enabling us to target needs and offer stronger mentorship to local Catalysts on Spot operations, with Catalysts equipped with the app as a tool for driving community-led change effectively. 🔥 Once this initial core function has been established, and is being rolled out effectively and consistently at the Spots, the idea is that all our learner programmes will be run through the app (e.g. monthly challenges sent, solutions filed, feedback given, certificates sent and leadership board created), again solving time for our strand leaders who do much of this manually. 🌈 The real dream in the longer term is to create a Facebook for community-based educators, with pages for Catalysts and Spots, which reflect their outputs, awards, and certificates, and enable them to motivate and connect with each other. 👣 These are some reflections/suggestions for anyone launching an app! 1. Have a trial group before launching across the whole network. We trialled with 30 Spots enrolled our Catalyse Leadership Programme, and on reflection, we might have started with a smaller group. 2. Have a clear structure in place to gain feedback from that group, and the staff time needed to feed this back to the developers. 3. Ensure you have the time to spend with the developers across the first year, to ensure that all the ideas come to fruition. Explaining and testing functions takes time! 4. You need a detailed strategic plan in place to motivate the users to use the app, in place of what they did before. This takes some critical thinking and advice planning! Do not assume the app will be used. 5. We've had some challenges with getting things set up on play store and similar - again, remember before a launch that the administration behind an app can take some time. 6. Clearly, you need the technology and network infrastructure in place ahead of launching the app. We used Lenovo tablets and wifi kits, and give Spots a data allowance each month for the purpose of app usage. ✨ Overall, it was a great decision to launch the app! I believe it will greatly enhance our impact and the connected nature of our community of educators over time. But if we did it again, I might draw up a more detailed plan in advance for roll out, and ensure we had further staff capacity dedicated to this, with more efforts focused on fundraising to get further tablets in place. 📸 Shout-out to Kennedy (captured!) who has led much of this work - especially in procuring, configuring, loading and distributing tablets! #technology #innovation #appdevelopment

🔮 AI Will Transform How We Learn Based on my personal exploration, AI has enormous potential to transform how we learn. While most educational AI applications remain basic, I see several promising opportunities ahead: 🎙️ Dynamic Content Generation I have been impressed with Google's NotebookLLM's ability to break down books and scientific articles. It already creates study guides, briefing documents, and quizzes. Its unique feature is the ability to create podcast-like audio discussions that are very easy to listen to. This powerful tool should be more broadly adopted in education and professional development. It's just a matter of time before video summaries can be automatically generated to explain complex topics. This approach could foster what Csikszentmihalyi called "flow"—that optimal state where challenge and skill perfectly balance. 🗣️ Conversational Learning Interfaces Advanced voice modes from OpenAI, Gemini, and Sesame show early promise. These vocal interfaces remove typing friction, creating natural learning environments. I envision systems where learners debate with AI-represented experts, maintaining engagement that supports deep learning. 🛠️ No-Code Learning Applications I've used platforms like Lovable to build educational tools without coding. One can create pharmacokinetic modeling apps that simulate how drugs move through the body (https://lnkd.in/eMkHR65Z). This hands-on approach could transform how we teach technical subjects, allowing learners to experiment with interactive simulations rather than just reading about theories. 👨🏫 Personalized AI Coaching With the right prompts, LLMs provide effective personalized coaching on diverse topics. These AI coaches offer context, suggest further reading, and adapt explanations. While limited by context windows, they show remarkable potential for tailored learning experiences. 🥽 Spatial Learning Environments Augmented Reality (AR) applications could visualize abstract concepts in physical space. I built an AR app for iOS in one day that visualizes protein networks (https://lnkd.in/eh8tZQZz). This democratization means anyone can create personalized spatial learning tools—visualize protein networks, walk through a giant cell, or place 3D sculptures in your living room. The game-changer is that we can now build these immersive experiences ourselves, tailored precisely to what we're trying to learn. I believe AI can become an active learning partner that understands cognitive processes and adapts to individual needs. I'm excited to continue exploring these possibilities.

As a learning app, you're not in the education business. You're in the habit building business. This insight made Duolingo worth $14B while most learning apps struggle to keep users past day 7. Every learning app is competing for screen time with Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, X and Snap. If your app isn't as engaging as doom-scrolling, your users don't stick around. When they don't stick around, they don't learn. How to win the screen time battle: 1️⃣ Design for micro moments Duolingo lessons take just 3 minutes. Why? The data shows start and completion rates drop for longer sessions. These micro moments compound. 3 minutes daily adds up to 15 hours of focused language practice fast - equivalent to a semester-long university course. 2️⃣ Lock distracting apps until users complete a session in your app Users aren’t picking TikTok over your app - they are falling for the easier habit. SDKs like Wellspent lock social media apps until your users complete a lesson in your app. ‘Do something good for you, then get rewarded.’ A centuries-old way to establish good habits. Go check wellspent dot so 3️⃣ Engineer momentum with rewards Your job is to make users feel successful. Because success triggers motivation → creates consistency → reaches goals. Build confidence by rewarding users strategically (in this order): - Immediate rewards: UX, sounds, animations (make every touch point fun) - Short-term rewards: streaks, social media app is unlocked - Long-term rewards: levels, league advancement Don’t make the mistake that most learning apps make: They focus on teaching content instead of building learning habits. Content without habit = zero learning outcomes.