Kyle
Linton
To continue our Top Ten series, in this blog we will cover the top applications to learn something new. We will be taking a slightly broader perspective of the market in considering both E-Learning applications and applications that facilitate learning through providing access to resources, knowledge, or teaching.
Educational applications are the third most popular type of app on the Google Play and Apple stores. During the height of the pandemic, hundreds of millions of users downloaded various educational applications to continue learning and overcome the educational challenges associated with COVID and pandemic lockdowns. These applications have a variety of functions from helping students learn a particular language to exploring our solar system.
There are thousands of educational apps available to download but here are some of our favorites:
Duolingo at its core is a gamified language learning application. It was initially created in 2011 and to date has registered over 500 million users. It is arguably the best application for learning a new language. The application supports learning of over 41 different languages. The app has been designed from the ground up to make the learning experience simple, intuitive, and fun for users. Duolingo is best known for its beautiful user interface and bite size learning modules that are actually fun. We love using Duolingo to learn Spanish, German, and other languages.
Masterclass aims to provide video curriculum from the top celebrities and teachers in the world. The company was founded in 2015 and has grown significantly since launching, especially during the period of the pandemic. Through the application users can navigate through the library of content to find video courses that pertain to their interests. Want to learn tennis? Serena Williams has a course outlining the basics. Want to learn about negotiation? Chris Voss teaches a course on empathy, mirroring, and other social engineering concepts. The quality of content on Masterclass is top notch and a quarter of people who watch their videos say it changed their lives.
Blinkist is the fastest way to read a book. The company was founded in 2012 with the purpose of providing users with a short bitesize synopsis of a particular book, podcast, or topic. Blinkest boasts over 23 million users, and aims to serve a user base of readers and non-readers alike who don’t have time to read entire books. The application has over 5,000 nonfiction books in its library for users to choose from.
Yousician is a musical educational tool for aspiring musicians. The company was founded in 2010 to be “your music teacher.” The app supports learning for guitar, piano, bass, ukulele, and voice lessons. One of the best features of the application is the audio signal processing functionality that matches real-time musical notes from the app with played notes. The app has both beginner and advanced user functionality to help musicians of all skill levels.
Classpass is an application that allows users to book a variety of exercise classes in person. Unlike some of the other applications on this list, it is less focused on an app based experience but instead provides optionality for various exercise experiences. Classpass was founded in 2013 and to date has aggregated membership access to over 30,000 health centers. Through their system users can try kickboxing, yoga, swimming, cycling, strength training or a variety of other activities. Classpass is also on our list of Top Applications to Improve Your Mental Health.
Khan Academy offers educational lessons and practice exercises for students trying to learn math, science, or a variety of other topics. The organization was founded in 2008 and has over 999 million lessons delivered to date. The app has videos, articles, exercises, quizzes, and tests to help users sharpen their skills and learn. Most of the content within Khan is catered to a younger audience.
The NASA app is dedicated to sharing the work of NASA and helping users explore our solar system and beyond. The app has augmented reality features, multimedia content, satellite tracking, and other features facilitating learning about space. This is one of the more unique educational app experiences as it has many advanced features that facilitate learning through various modalities. The initial version of the app was released to iOS in 2009 soon after the release of the iPhone. Subsequently the Android version was released as well in 2011.
Google Earth is one of the most universally accessed applications for mapping and viewing of granular GPS location data. The core service is also the backbone for other applications such as GeoGuessr (one of our favorite happy hour games). Through the app, users can learn about specific locations through viewing 3D terrain data of the entire globe. A user can zoom into a particular area of the map and access a street view perspective or navigate around a region to get additional insights. The app also offers knowledge cards, randomized location access, and other exploration features.
The Udemy app provides business related educational courses for users to take. It is a similar application to Khan Academy but from a content perspective is more focused on Coding, Marketing, Photography, and other business related coursework. Udemy offers over 32,000 courses from 18,000 different teachers. Outside of the standard features, the application offers downloadable content (accessible offline), the ability to cast to a larger screen, and various other beneficial features.
The Quizlet app is the goto way to study flashcards on your mobile device. Users can create their own custom flashcards or access over 500 million sets of cards created by students and teachers associated with various skills or activities. The app was released in 2012 and claims to have over 60 million students using the platform.
Educational apps come in all shapes and sizes but the best applications aim to serve a particular niche with either content or access to learning opportunities. Our team is always looking for new applications to help us learn new skills or obtain new knowledge and these represent a few of our favorites.
What are your favorite educational apps? Drop us a line and we will make sure to include them in our future Top Ten Lists.
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