Are you confused about what makes up for education software? Where is it used? What are its features? We heard you. In this article, we will walk you through all the important concepts around education software, right from its definition and the latest trends in education software to its pricing, in detail.
Gone are the days when education was only limited to learning from books. But given the rapid evolution of technology, education has also gone digital like many other industries. You will find a host of educational software available in the market. However, not everyone knows about them; be it the type and benefits of educational software or what to look for in one while buying. But before we explore all that, let’s begin by understanding the meaning of education software.
» What is an Education Software?
» What are the Types of Educational Software?
» Best Education Software
» What is the Education Software Used For?
» What are the features of Educational Software
» What are the Benefits of Education Software?
» Who Uses Education Software?
» What are the Trends in Education Software?
» How to Choose Educational Software?
» How Much Does Educational Software Cost?
» Conclusion
What is an Education Software?
The term “Education Software” is broader than you think. It concerns with any (or all) type of software that the education industry can utilize. The purpose of using such software, however, remains the same: to make education more efficient and effective than it already is. For the provider or receiver or both.
Whether it is a system managing student information, a language learning software, reference software, or classroom management software; all of them fall under the comprehensive term Education Software.
Educational software, with the help of advancing technology, ends up simplifying the activity of either teaching or self-learning in general. It makes learning interactive and immersive for the students while much more manageable and collaborative for the educators.
There are many companies around the world now that focus on developing customized educational software for schools or students of a particular stream of study. The features and complexity levels vary from software to software. For example, the educational software for kids would have different functionalities and features than that of a higher education software system.
That’s probably why education software comes in several categories. Let’s discover them in depth.
What are the Types of Educational Software?
Education software can be designed to fulfill diverse requirements, goals, and demands of the stakeholders. To make things convenient for you, we have compiled the following list of the top 10 types of education software you will come across:
› Authoring System
Authoring systems make the teachers’ life a bit easier. Using this system, teachers can build their own instructional content with ease. Right from developing multimedia content like reviews, lessons, and tutorials to creating e-flash cards to teach specific concepts, the software gives teachers an upper hand.
What’s more is, authoring systems are available in web versions too. That allows teachers to develop multimedia content for easy integration on websites.
› Graphic Software
The graphic software has extensive use for both students and teachers. Thanks to this software, you can not only capture and change but also create images which are present online or in the program. It also enables you to create elegant online presentations.
› Desktop Publishing
Have you seen those engaging newsletters, flyers, and leaflets? They are made using desktop publishing software or DTP software as it is widely known. Popular software in this category includes Adobe PageMaker, Adobe InDesign, and CorelDRAW.
It is useful for teachers as well as students. Teachers or admin staff can use it for developing brochures to highlight upcoming school programs and events. Students, on the other hand, can utilize DTP to create appealing visual communication for their school projects.
Apart from that, the DTP skill has a higher value in the job market. Many companies utilize this kind of software to develop productive marketing material in-house, from ads to reports.
› Tutorial Software
You can think of tutorial software as a platform on which teachers can teach new lessons to students as well as assess their capabilities. The highlight of this software is that it lets students learn at their own pace. Thus, if student A is a slow learner than student B and C, it won’t force student A to increase their learning speed. They can learn and practice lessons on their own based on their individual grasping level.
› Educational Games
Educational gaming software is learning meets fun. It incorporates critical learning concepts into games, making education not only an easy but also enjoyable activity. Such type of software is especially useful for kids and toddlers. From teaching them about animals and alphabets to offering basic science, maths, and geography concepts, there are many takers for educational games software.
› Math Problem Solving Software
Mathematics tends to be a dreadful subject for many students. But thanks to technology, now there is Math Problem Solving Software to ease the Number Woes of students. Math teachers can use this type of software to help students develop and strengthen their problem-solving abilities. The software also somehow manages to build a liking for the subject along the way.
› Courseware
The term Courseware marries the word “course” with “software”. When originated, Courseware referred to any added educational material known as kits teachers and trainers relied on or tutorials students used through computers. Over time, the term has expanded and now it points to a complete course or extra material for a computer-formatted or online classroom.
It tends to pack in one course with different tests, lessons, and everything else that the course requires for a student to master it. Courseware is available in diverse formats: some are online-only, while some are downloadable in documents and PDFs.
› Classroom Aids
Classroom aids are software technologies that aid classroom teaching. It blends in the best of audio/visual and courseware to make learning more engaging for students. For teachers, the software makes it easier to craft media-rich lessons.
The overhead projectors are age-old classroom aids. With advancements in technology, the projectors upgraded to enhanced digital displays and now we have interactive whiteboards and projectors.
› Assessment Software
Assessment software is a type of educational software to assess and test students in a virtual set-up. Through the software, students can take tests via computers. The software program then evaluates them and returns results for each of them.
› Corporate Training and Tertiary Education
With the Corporate Training and Tertiary Education software, users receive education in small sections of a module, one after the other via the internet. The software gathers the results of the learning program and gives the progress report to the teachers/trainers.
Since we’ve explored educational software types, it is time to discover its uses.
The innovations in technology have changed the face of education over the years. While earlier, it was all about classroom education full of books and blackboards, now it is more about screens - of varying sizes. All thanks to the availability of education software.
Education software is an extensive term; it refers to any software that aids education. The purpose is to make education more efficient. It has different categories to attain distinct goals, right from tutorial software, courseware, and educational gaming to desktop publishing and authoring systems.
Thanks to educational software, education is no longer boring. The software packs in diverse technologies, such as AI and ML, to ensure learning becomes highly immersive and personalized for each learner. The best thing is, students can learn at their own pace despite sharing the same course.
As far as teachers and administrative staff are concerned, online education software helps them with improved student data management and evaluations. That empowers them to focus on more valuable aspects of learning.
But which one should you purchase? There are a great many educational software out there, after all. Don’t worry. Here’s the list of top education software, along with their features and pricing. Check it out and compare before you buy one.
Best Education Software
1. SMART Learning Suite
SMART Learning Suite by SMART Technologies ULC aims to elevate student outcomes through better ways of learning. Popular as all-in-one software, the SMART Learning Suite empowers tutors and ignites student engagement levels.
Through this educational software, it becomes possible for educators to develop dynamic, interactive lessons, and work more collaboratively. Students, on the other hand, get to experience game-based learning that suits their unique needs as well as learning speed.
On top of it all, the learning suite offers formative assessments. Thus, teachers can gauge students’ understanding in real-time and provide them with adequate assistance at the right time.
› Features
• It offers a seamless transformation of static files, such as PDFs and PowerPoint, into interactive lessons.
• It enables the creation and delivery of lessons on any device - smartphone, computers, or tablets. Moreover, the lessons are available anytime, anywhere.
• It provides shared workspaces where students can share a digital canvas to add content, co-create, or have a problem-solving session.
› Benefits
• The interactive and engaging learning improves concept understanding and retention.
• With interesting real-time assessment tools, including multiple-choice, true/false questions and short answers, it’s easier to determine students’ progress.
• Hassle-free integration with present technology allows ease of utility.
• The availability of both desktop-based and cloud-enabled learning offers the flexibility of learning.
› Pricing
The SMART Learning Suite costs around $109. The prices vary based on your choice of subscription duration, the number of teachers it is for, and the type of currency. It also offers a limited period free trial with an online learning suite and Notebook desktop software.
2. Cerego
Cerego is online learning software that offers more efficiency, efficacy, and accessibility to both students and educators. It relies on the most stimulating learning science fundamentals in order to help learners develop a beneficial approach to learning.
What’s fascinating is, many reputed universities and institutions use Cerego thanks to its adaptive platform. For instance, the University of Pittsburgh, Arizona State University, and NYU.
Since this education software is available across a variety of devices at your preferred time, learning becomes highly flexible. In fact, its distinct features take the remote learning experience a notch higher. Let’s see some of them below.
› Features
• It utilizes cognitive science concepts to help learners discover the right materials for learning, at the right time.
• It combines AI and machine learning technologies to offer a personalized learning experience.
• It offers solid administrative tools and analytics to simplify progress-tracking.
• It packs in advance multimedia tools to modernize course materials.
› Benefits
• Whether it is a recreation of existing content or development from scratch, Cerego offers all kinds of digital content, from maps and PDFs to flashcards and videos, for more immersive learning.
• As Cerego offers the right information when it is needed the most, learning and teaching both become more powerful. That boosts retention by up to 90%.
• The platform quantifies the learners’ knowledge and makes accurate predictions on their future performance, letting you plan more tactfully.
› Pricing
Cerego’s standard plan for small classes and teams starts from $8.33 a month per seat for annual billing. And $10 per month on a monthly billing per seat.
3. Oracle Cloud for Higher Education
With Oracle Cloud for Higher Education, higher education institutes across the world can have enhanced learning and teaching experience. Oracle’s cloud solutions are known to be innovative and powerful enough to streamline student success and boost the institutes’ sustainability.
The educational software by Oracle covers the entire lifecycle of both - students and educators. It is designed to drive innovations and elevate student performance in the most engaging manner possible. The technologies are such that they transform the campus successfully to keep pace with today’s young and tech-savvy learners.
› Features
• The cloud solution helps bring together student, finance, and HR systems.
• It helps create highly engaging, personalized, and socially sharable digital content to increase subject understanding and retention among modern students.
• The cloud platform is data-driven, mobile, social, and facilitates easy integration.
› Benefits
• It makes transitioning to the cloud a smoother experience for the institutions.
• Thanks to personalized learning, students are better able to meet their individual academic, personal, and professional goals.
• Real-time insights help carve result-oriented learning programs.
› Pricing
You can sign up with Oracle to begin a free trial.
4. Blackbaud Higher Education Software
The Blackbaud Higher Education Software aims towards connecting and growing your campus by providing a best-in-class student experience. The fact that it is a cloud-based solution makes it a feasible choice for educational institutions the world over.
The education management software empowers you to constructively manage the complete learner lifecycle, right from admissions through alumni. Developed using advanced technologies, its purpose is to help your institute attain digital transformation and drive impact. It is scalable and flexible to meet your unique requirements.
› Features
• The software helps create a powerful digital experience which is in line with modern students’ aspirations.
• It provides customized and meaningful learner interactions.
• It connects enrollment, admissions, academics, marketing, and advancement operations for unparalleled efficiency.
› Benefits
• The solution’s centralized management of data boosts the competence of your staff and educators.
• Its personalized experience keeps students engaged to move forward in their learning journey.
• Thanks to connected departments and operations, you save a lot of time as well as efforts, driving rich outcomes.
› Pricing
You can drop an inquiry on their website to learn about your ideal software solution and its pricing.
5. CampusNexus Student
CampusNexus Student is the flagship SIS i.e student information system by Campus Management. It redefines the way you cater to the traditional students, embracing their diversity and varied backgrounds.
The platform is cloud-based and developed on the Azure Cloud by Microsoft. The purpose is to get students, systems, campuses, and programs together through a single technology.
This higher education software allows better management of flexible academic programs and terms while also boosting the management of curriculum and enrollment activities. Apart from that, the platform provides you with valuable insights, driven by precise data, to fulfill student requirements in the most dynamic manner possible.
› Features
• It offers flexible learning, in the form of online, on-campus, and clock-hour academic terms and programs. There are certificates and competency-based courses as well.
• It ensures students get the right financial aids and resources through automated processes.
• It is a comprehensive system that assists right from student enrollment to academic management and engagement to progress reporting and analytics.
› Benefits
• The automated processes help save a lot of precious time, resources, and efforts of the educators and admin staff by eliminating manual procedures. • That way, they can focus more on more vital tasks, such as interactions with students.
• Students receive customized academic support plans depending on their distinct requirements, helping them perform better.
› Pricing
You need to drop an inquiry with your details to hear back from the Campus Management team. They offer a demonstration of their products based on your institution’s needs.
6. Jenzabar One - eLearning
Jenzabar One’s eLearning solution is meant to meet the need for diversity in today’s high-tech education landscape. From personalized attention and social connection to uninterrupted online accessibility, this educational solution ticks all the boxes of a modern student’s checklist.
As far as educators are concerned, this e-learning platform equips them with tools to build and deliver a dynamic learning environment. Furthermore, it helps the instructors adopt innovative approaches to keep the engagement and interest levels of students up at all times, across a broader array of topics.
Jenzabar’s eLearning platform is known for its ease of learning and impeccable integration.
› Features
• It offers a powerful course organizer - the homepage sorts events, assignments, news, resources, and discussions by the unit. There’s an overview of courses too for students.
• It provides for fast-track, remedial, and customized pace of work.
• It allows the moving of content from course to course.
• It consists of dedicated discussion and chat forums for better coordination and doubt resolution.
• Students can access education courses and connect with their instructors round the clock, no matter where they are.
› Benefits
• 24/7 availability and accessibility captivates the learners and lets them be in control of their studies.
• The software offers easy integration with existing systems to let you get started in no time.
• The unique methods of teaching and assessments enhance the quality of education.
• The seamless exchange of data with admin systems results in better information management.
› Pricing
You can request a demo by filling up a form with your information on their website.
7. Salesforce Education Cloud
Education Cloud by Salesforce.org allows the creation of 360-degree views over the complete student lifecycle. What’s more interesting is, this thoughtful education software comes in two distinct versions: Education Cloud for K12 and Education Cloud for Higher Education.
Education Cloud for K12 allows schools to connect their data, systems, and people for achieving enhanced communications, student enrollment, management, and fundraising operations. It contains tools to help students attain excellence and higher performance.
Education Cloud for Higher Education leads to a well-connected campus. Thanks to the software, higher-ed students get to receive proactive advice and customization throughout their learning lifecycle.
› Features
• It offers a 360-degree view of each of your learners.
• From hiring and admissions to student experience to alumni engagement to institutional operations, it enables building tailor-made experiences with a single integrated CRM.
• It allows wellness tracking to make informed decisions for ensuring a safe educational environment leveraging precise data analytics.
› Benefits
• A thorough data insight on students helps take measures to boost learner engagement.
• The innovative technological tools assist in escalating the productivity of both the teachers and administrative staff.
• A proactive approach to education, combined with personalized attention and experiences, helps students achieve their individual goals.
› Pricing
You can sign up to avail 30-day free trial of the Education Cloud for K12. The trial includes K-12 Architecture Kit along with Lightning Enterprise Edition. Similarly, you can try CRM for Higher Education for free for 30 days. All you need to do is sign up for EDA (Education Data Architecture) + Lightning Enterprise Edition.
8. Google Classroom
Google Classroom is yet another impactful solution from tech giant Google. It is an uncomplicated tool that helps educators accomplish efficient management and assessments of progress. Apart from that, its all-in-one suite aids in making a stronger connection with learners, irrespective of their geographical location.
With Google Classroom, teaching becomes simplified while learning turns more amplified. It has built-in Google Meet for building face-to-face connections with students. The Stream page of the solution empowers instructors to communicate critical announcements to students hassle-freely.
The Classroom provides distinct sign-in for every user for maximum security. For a better learning experience, the Classroom allows integration with plenty of applications approved by educators, such as BookWidgets, Alma, and BrainPOP.
› Features
• It offers a hybrid approach to let you connect with students in-class or virtually.
• Setting up classes takes only a few minutes, post which, you can add students or share links or codes with them to join it.
• It offers seamless communication with guardians; a provision of auto-updates also exists.
• Its originality reports enable students to ensure plagiarism-free work.
• It provides a transparent grading mechanism for effective evaluations.
› Benefits
• Classroom activities are restricted to members, increasing student privacy.
• The accessibility of lessons on the go or from home and school fuels interest, which, in turn, drives better engagement.
• Transparent evaluations help form personalized lessons that boost learner understanding and growth.
› Pricing
You need to sign up for G Suite for Education which includes Google Classroom. It seamlessly works with other G Suite collaboration tools.
What is the Education Software Used For?
The use of paid and free educational software is to provide efficiency and better experience to anyone who uses it.
In a more general sense, education software has its applications in:
• Higher Education - Many universities have embraced the latest technologies to keep students ahead of the curve. From science and IT courses to commerce, tech-based classrooms, leveraging online education software, are now a reality.
• K12 Education - A majority of schools utilize educational software for kids, from kindergarten to class 12. The complexity, lesson inclusion, and user interface vary depending on its intended users. Now, Let’s Unearth the Features of Educational Software.
What are the features of Educational Software
Educational software tends to have distinct features based on its usage, goals, and targeted users. However, the best of education software have some common features, listed below:
› Easy-to-use Interface
An ideal user interface of any kind of education software is the one that is simple enough for use even by a first-time user. Moreover, it makes navigating between different screens and activities super smooth with the right placements of intuitive icons and navigation bars.
› Uncluttered Graphics and Layout
Modern education software platforms incorporate captivating graphics for an immersive learning experience. But it is vital to not overuse it. For example, if a lesson contains too many diagrams or charts, it ends up being a distraction.
To avoid such a scenario, it is essential to design the layout well to maintain a perfect balance between the content and multimedia.
› Personalization
Each student has a different pace of learning for different curriculums. Hence, it is crucial for a good education software solution to offer personalization in those areas. Students should be able to structure and manage their speed and save their work to revisit later for shared courses.
› Interactive Learning
Almost all kinds of education software focus on providing maximum interactivity to keep boredom at bay while learning. From personalized suggestions to information retention tools, it’s imperative to keep the learners engaged.
› Easy Feedback
One can’t grow without keeping a track of their progress. Therefore, education software for students comes in with a good reviewing mechanism. It allows the teachers to track their students’ growth and modify their learning plans accordingly. Students, too, can self-assess their improvement. A lot of software offer bar graphs for such functionality.
› Speed
The learning modules that are slow to load loses significance in the students’ eyes. Thus, ensure to steer clear of such inconvenience. Apart from that, slow lessons with large chunks of data are also off. Instead, great EdTech software prefers providing bite-size lessons to keep interest levels high.
› Clear Exits
Like an easy entry into the education program, the students and teachers need a simpler exit as well. Hence, it is critical that each lesson or module has a visible exit point to refrain them from using the close button in frustration.
› Instructions v/s Information
Education software is not something to stuff information and instruction. There has to be a right balance between both. After all, excess of anything is harmful as they say. So, be mindful of including anything that doesn’t serve the purpose of education, like references and multimedia dictionaries.
What are the Benefits of Education Software?
While the conventional learning system has been effective all these years, tech-based education takes it a notch higher. There are plenty of advantages of using educational software. Let’s see what they are:
› Smart Content
In the era of smart technologies, educational content has also become smart. Such software encompasses diverse technologies, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, so that its digital content adapts itself to suit the users’ distinct needs and knowledge base effortlessly. Moreover, smart content contains built-in evaluations to let teachers track and test students without hassles.
› Accessibility
Education software makes it possible for you to learn from anywhere, at your own convenient time. It offers you uninterrupted access to courses you’re keen on in a complete package - lessons, tests, assessments, and revisions. It has made distance learning much more interesting than it was earlier.
› Open Communication & Collaboration
Open communication and uncomplicated collaboration are the keys to great learning. Hence, most online education software offers both. Parents and students can interact with teachers and peers seamlessly. Furthermore, the software promotes easy sharing and collaboration among students and teachers for projects.
› Consolidation of Information
Many kinds of educational software enable you to amalgamate all the related data into a central repository. As a result, it becomes easier to arrive at accurate insights. That, in turn, assists administrators and teachers in developing better teaching strategies as well as admin policies.
› Pleasant Learning Environment
Educational software has turned a traditional classroom digital. There is interactive learning, captivating multimedia, immersive augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) software integration, and enhanced classroom management tools. All of it together makes the entire learning experience pleasant beyond expectations.
› Improved Efficiency
Thanks to education software, many tasks of teachers and administrative staff undergo automation. For instance, grading and student data management. Thus, they get more time to concentrate on more important aspects of teaching, helping them become more efficient in attaining their objectives.
› Personalized Experience
The best thing about higher or k12 education software is, it adapts to different learning styles and pace. Each user of the system has a customized experience, that may be totally different from their peers. It is something which we don’t get to experience in a traditional classroom setup.
› Elevated Self-confidence
Educational software, used in schools or homes, promotes self-learning. Students can take countless trials and take a lesson over and over until they feel they have cracked the concept. That instills a sense of self-belief and trust in the process. The easy access to their mentor if they feel stuck also elevates their confidence.
Who Uses Education Software?
The primary user groups of any type of education software are - students, teachers, school administration, and parents.
The software equips the school administration and teachers to craft, as well as share, high-value lessons, and content. It also helps them better manage classrooms and student data. From better data management to automated grading and smart review tools, the software has taken the way of teaching to a new high.
For the students, the software becomes a boon which lets them study curated learning plans and take tests. When it comes to the parents, the software allows them access to the tutors and administrators so that they remain in the loop about their kid’s studies. We can say that parents get a dedicated window to oversee their kid’s performance.
What are the Trends in Education Software?
The consistent evolution in technology is giving way to new emerging trends in educational software technologies.
› AR/VR
Augmented reality and virtual reality are undergoing widespread adoption across the world. The use of such technology in education boosts deeper understanding and retention of a subject. Students find this way of learning fascinating and engaging while teachers leverage it to teach difficult concepts in an easier manner.
› Artificial Intelligence
Many schools and universities have already started integrating AI in their classrooms. Though this technology has multiple uses, one of its applications is leveraging AI-powered teaching assistants. Such assistants, powered by ML, handle students’ questions and resolve their queries after thorough checks. Over time, they become more accurate with an increased number of questions and a wider scope of subjects.
How to Choose Educational Software?
With so many options in the market, selecting an ideal education software can be tricky. But don’t worry. We’ve compiled a simple-checklist of factors you should look for while buying education software.
• Discover whether educational software helps achieve your goals - of teaching, managing, and collaborating. For that, however, find out first the reasons why you need the software.
• Check whether the education software offers robust data security. From solid multi-factor authentication, data redundancy to role-based permissions, everything matters.
• Ensure the features of the software meet your unique requirements. If it does, then see if it fits your budget. You can also compare the features and costs of different software to make the right choice.
• See whether the education software for students offers real-time analytics and reports for improved assessments and insights.
Determine whether the software is scalable to cater to a large group of users at a time. On top of that, make sure it is customizable to adapt to diverse learning styles.
• Understand what kind of support the educational software platform would pack in after purchase. Does it offer hassle-free up-gradation with minimal downtime? Does it provide automated data recovery and back-up? What support the vendor would provide in case the system crashes?
Answers to the above points will help you make the right decision, saving a lot of your money, time, and effort.
How Much Does Educational Software Cost?
The pricing of education software depends on various factors - type, features, and usage. Needless to say, the cost varies from software to software.
While some education software vendors charge a monthly fee, some employ the annual pricing model. Some software charges you per user, every month, or per use by each learner. The former is available starting from $5, and the latter falls in the range of $1 - $10. Some offer per course-basis cost.
There are numerous vendors who let you buy the installation license. The licensing fee doesn’t include the cost of setup, implementation, training, and data migration. The approximate price range is from $500 to $25,000.
Conclusion
The technological advancements have prompted the education industry to embrace newer ways of learning. The increasing popularity of education software around the globe is proof of that. With its diverse categories, EdTech software not only hones the learning capabilities but also escalates the students’ interests in learning. At the same time, it successfully takes some burden off the shoulders of teachers and admin staff when it comes to information management and repetitive duties.
