Currently, educational apps on various topics are gradually stamping offline express courses out of the market. This tendency is accelerated by the prolonged quarantine situation. Pretty much ALL educational facilities are closed at the moment. It’s high time to take a look at some of the best educational apps out there.
Educational Platforms & Supporting Tools
Here are the most in-demand online education platforms that can be used via a smartphone.
eDX is an absolutely free learning platform where one can boost knowledge in fields such as programming, business management, languages, mathematics, cryptocurrency, psychology, history, etc. Whatever you choose to go for, expect to get a high-quality course that is provided not even by a private teacher, but by a specialized offline university.
The great thing about this app is that you can select the best suiting learning format for yourself – whether it is a study of printed teaching aids, interactive testing, or video lectures.
The renowned Khan Academy has a free smartphone app that has the ambition to enhance the IQ level of the population across the globe. The original academy website project was created under the leadership of Salman Khan. Subsequently, a popular YouTube channel followed. Nowadays, the project grew to be actively supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
At the moment, app users can access over 10,000 educational video tutorials in such in-depth aspects as astronomy, physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, geography, economics, and more. There is also an exclusive version of the app for kids called Khan Academy Kids with specialized educational programs.
Coursera is another famous educational resource. Namely, it is an online courses marketplace that collaborates with world-leading universities and reputable private teachers. Currently, Coursera can boast over 30 million active users from all over the world.
In the dedicated app, you can find comprehensive video courses with subtitles on mathematics, physics, various fields of art, biology, management, and business. At the end of each course, students get to pass an exam and get an individual score.
Udemy – yet another popular app for education that can boast a truly record number of courses – over 100,000! There is a huge number of discipline types to select from: exact and human sciences, design, music, programming, and even sports.
The dedicated Udemy website has all the same types of educational material. Up to date, the total number of Udemy students has passed a 24 million mark, which means that it’s definitely worth a try.
The iTunes U app offers you to access educational materials from your mobile device that can be used for both teaching and self-study.
The original purpose of iTunes U was to create and publish online courses and related teaching materials – lectures, homework, books, tests. Today, millions of iOS users prefer it to study remotely by the programs of teachers of the best universities in the world, including Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford.
Memorization Apps
Now these are the five coolest apps for improving your memory and memorization capabilities.
Quizlet is a free service to help a user and user’s students go through some efficient express education. With its help, you can create interactive cards with educational material to be viewed from any smartphone with the app.
To compose cards, you get access to the online database of knowledge or you can use the existing materials on your smartphone. By the way, the cards have extensive interactive features – you add exercises, tests, and games.
You can create a limited number of cards using a free version of the app or you can purchase a full solution for $19,99.
TinyCards by Duolingo is a solution to help you memorize new words through educational games. You can also create your own games and use flashcards for remote education during the quarantine.
Here, you can create whole collections of cards via a fast, accessible, free to use editor. If you want to add images and sounds to the cards, however, you’ll have to purchase a full paid version.
The app also has some interesting extra features – for instance, users get to import files to generate cards based on existing assets.
SmartCards+ is an app of similar card-based type, which is pretty efficient as well. Delivering educational materials in such an accessible form, you can easily engage a student or yourself in the continuous teaching/learning effort.
Online Courses for Learning Languages
Onto reviewing the most popular language-learning solutions that were approved by numerous users globally.
Duolingo is an application for learning foreign languages – English, German, French, Spanish, etc. The main difference between Duolingo and its competitors is the ability to learn a language without having any knowledge base. In the application, all tasks (grammar, listening, reading) are very conveniently grouped by difficulty level, which makes the learning process as simple and consistent as possible.
Each block of knowledge in the app ends with a test that allows you to understand how much you have advanced in the course.
Memrise is an awesome gamified system for memorizing words in a foreign language (any of the proposed dozens). Part of the app is available for free, part of its functionality is opened only by a paid subscription, the price of which starts from $4,90 per month.
To consolidate the new vocabulary, Memrise students get to perform various exercises. At the same time, the application uses the principle of interval repetition so that students can remember new words in the shortest possible time. Almost all the features of the Memrise app are available offline.
Rosetta Stone is a perfect solution for instant language immersion, helping to learn a foreign language in the shortest time possible as well. The “trick” of this app is that there are no translations into your native language. This imposes certain difficulties on beginners, but further develops logical thinking among students and, in fact, makes them think out words due to context.
Rosetta Stone can also boast a customizable speech recognition mechanism called TrueAccent, which check the pronunciation.
Many deem Lingualeo a better version of Duolingo. Indeed, the app offers a huge volume of knowledge and learning material. On the other hand, Duolingo fits even total beginners, providing a good learning foundation (although, there are not so many words and you probably won’t really master grammar that well).
In turn, Lingualeo is focused only on English, however providing much wider capabilities for higher quality self-education.
Babbel is what will help you learn a foreign language in a fun way step-by-step. The resource’s methodological base implies the use of interactive tools and effective technologies that involve all types of human memory for faster and more effective learning. The application has a free trial version that you can test to check out all its advantages.
By the way, apart from the mobile app, the service also offers a corporate solution for companies looking to boost their employees’ level of language.
Exam Preparation Apps & Handbooks
This next list is about the best learning apps to help you find and master a particular field of knowledge fast.
Judging by the assurances of the developers, PhotoMath is the number one application for learning mathematics. To use it, you simply scan an example using the camera of your smartphone or tablet and upload it to the server. And then, as if by magic, you get all the solving steps and the final answer.
Socratic is a great reference guide for people of all ages and specialization. In order to efficiently use it, you just have to take a picture of a task, object, or formula. You get an immediate answer and an explanation of it so that in the future you can solve similar problems yourself.
WolframAlpha is a very useful software for those who need an auxiliary reference guide to help with the main course of study (in college or school, for example). An ideal choice for those who seek to pump their level of focused knowledge and improve memory.
Many users find it similar to Socratic, but note a higher level of knowledge offered. The app has a real giveaway price at that – only $2,99.
SoloLearn is yet another reference guide app that will teach you how to program. It is absolutely free and offers a lot of training materials on such popular development languages as C++, Python, Java, JS, PHP, Swift, etc. This application can be used as a complete replacement for offline courses and, if desired, will help you kick off a programmer’s career.
WikiWeb is full-on Wikipedia in your smartphone, but in with a much more structured and logical foundation. This is a great guide to a wide variety of topics, which will help you upgrade your horizons to the 80 lvl.
Apps for Kids
Moving along, here are the top-5 educational apps developed specifically for kids.
ClassDojo is a super-efficient educational app for teachers, designed to communicate with students and their parents (each of which – teachers, students, and parents – has its own personal access policies). With it, you will be able to share all the class activities (for instance, by attaching a photo or video), assign funny avatars to each of the chat participants, and also award ratings and awards.
Would you like to instill in your child a love for the exact sciences and, in particular, for mathematics? DragonBox will help you do this in a playful and unobtrusive for a child way.
The entire series of DragonBox apps features amusing animation and, at the same time, a rather effective approach to learning. Judging by the reviews on the Google Play and App Store, parents are extremely pleased with what the Norwegian authors of this digital masterpiece did. It is noteworthy that here you will find solutions for both the smallest and the older children (from 12 years old).
Now this app is somewhat more universal in comparison with the previous one and contains examples for both children and adults. There is no such lively animation, as in the case of DragonBox, but the gamified approach is preserved.
The application helps to develop logical thinking, teaches to fluently solve equations, and in general, offers great knowledge boosting features.
On YouTube, despite the rather strict rules for publishing content, there are quite a few videos that children definitely should not watch. Instead, you can install the Youtube Kids app on your or your kid’s smartphone or tablet so that your children only useful video content.
In particular, there are tons of instructional videos – foreign languages, mathematics, physics, playing musical instruments, etc. Thus, you will provide your child with an excellent tool for self-development without the risk of them bumping into some negative content online.
Puzzles & Traditional Games
Following the educational apps for kids, let’s take a look at some puzzles and games that would fit adults as well.
If you want to train your brainstorming skills, Next Numbers 2 will definitely help. Despite simple tasks, users of this software note an increase in reaction and concentration of attention after using it for a while.
For all history buffs out there, we have a wonderful World History Quiz app that will give you a real brainstorming experience. A great choice for some smart leisure activity as well.
Monument Valley is a beautiful game that will help you immerse yourself in the world of geometry and architecture. Ultimately, it can help you enhance your spatial intelligence. The price of the game is quite affordable – only $3,99.
Lastly, The Room Two is a game focused on 3D mechanics. It costs only $2,99, providing similarly great opportunities for developing one’s spatial reasoning.
Playful Learning
If you prefer a playful form of self-study, then you should definitely pay attention to the following five apps.
Elevate will help you pump up your speaking skills, concentration, reaction speed, logical thinking, etc. in a playful way. Try it, you will definitely enjoy such a beneficial way of spending free time!
If you are a humanist, definitely try the Catena app. It will help you expand your vocabulary and improve logical thinking in an utterly fast and accessible manner.
The QuizUp app is a social quiz that brings together millions of people around the world. Choose one of the many topics and answer questions. Objective: give more right answers than your opponent. You get more than 700 topics to choose from.
The Trivia Crack mobile app connects users worldwide. This game was created based on the popular Trivial pursuit. The in-game questions are divided into 6 basic categories: entertainment, art, sports, history, science, and geography. With it, you can become truly erudite in the most various fields.
Specific Educational Apps for Science Buffs
Pay attention also to the five apps that will submerge you into the world of science head to toe.
Videos by TED’s lecturers are much more than your regular university lectures. With this educational app for students, you will learn about ordinary things from unusual perspectives and in a very short period of time (no more than 10 minutes). Currently, the TEDEd app provides online access to more than 253 thousand such video tutorials where answers to 15 million specific questions are given.
Essential Anatomy is a super cool application with in-depth 3D models that will help you thoroughly study the structural features of the human body.
The application is so well-developed that it is used by doctors and students of medical universities alike. The cost here is $24.99, but you can try it out absolutely free of charge.
360 Science is another example of an extremely captivating science learning experience. In the app, you can find all kinds of videos and pictures that will help to discover our planet better. The application is available only to owners of the iPad.
NASA Earth As Art will suit those who want to explore all corners of our planet. The application uses NASA satellites in order to record the most secluded surface areas of mountains, oceans, deserts, tropics, etc. This is ideal for wildlife aesthetes. iPad only.
Last but not least in this category of top educational apps. 3D Brain is a vivid example of how you can present not completely aesthetic components of your body. We strongly recommend trying it out for expanding the general outlook on things.
Workbooks/Worksheet
Collect your ideas and take notes that are stored in the cloud and accessible on every device.
MarginNote Reader allows you to not only take notes but also combine them into mind maps. This application also can be linked to your profile in Evernote.
SoundNote can become a real lifesaver for those who don’t want to bother with typing text manually. With it, everything can be recorded from voice. The ultimate cost is only $4,99.
If you are looking for a great recording design app, you should take a look at Summarize. Otherwise, its functionality is identical to previous examples from this category of solutions.
Resources with eBooks/Encyclopedias
If you want to improve your level of knowledge in a specific field through reading smart books, you should definitely check out the range of the following best educational apps for Android and iOS that offer digital literature (for free or at very low prices).
FreeBooks is an awesome ebook marketplace app. Here, you will find literature for every taste – educational, research, artistic in the original language (to learn foreign languages), etc. The solution also offers thousands of audiobooks for purchase to make your learning process even more convenient.
Google Play Books is a popular digital book distribution service. It has everything: from the classic works of Shakespeare, Hugo, Conan Doyle, etc. to textbooks that are almost impossible to find in offline retail stores.
The cost of books varies from a few cents to tens of dollars, which makes this service quite competitive along with its counterparts – Apple Books store, eBooks, etc.
Apple Books is another great app for the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple Watch that gives you access to tens of thousands of digital books that you can pre-learn from free snippets.
The app has a very well-thought-out search system, which will help even the most demanding “book-eaters” find what they need. In particular, there are separate columns with recently published editions. In addition, over time, the app picks new literature for you based on your search history, thereby, focusing on your personal preferences.
This application is perfect for those seeking to improve their cultural level without being distracted from everyday activities. Access thousands of interesting books in different categories, including training manuals in audio format.
The app features an intuitive interface and allows listening to audiobooks offline.
This app offers more than 50,000 books, each of which is absolutely free! You can also download audiobooks on your smartphone. Although, you will have to pay the monthly fee, which is very low, however.
The app will certainly please you with vivid design and will help you discover new knowledge horizons.
What do you think of the top examples of educational apps from our exhaustive list? Have you already tried any of them? Any essential discoveries? Share your experiences in the comments.
And if you have an idea for creating your own educational solution – hit us up and we will make you an app to be included in all sorts of popular educational apps tops!
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