The use of technology in schools has trebled over the last 10 years, partly explaining why the EdTech industry is estimated to be worth $250 billion. Which such a buoyant sector you can expect to see a lot of startups appearing and new product development occurring.
This is certainly the case in EdTech where $14 billion has already been invested by VCs in EdTech startups and this continues to grow.
With the pace of change in education, technology firms need to work incredibly hard to stay relevant and fulfil the needs of schools and other educational establishments. Changing and evolving at this speed requires a lot of development, which is not cheap and certainly not easy to find. This is why EdTech is increasingly turning towards no-code.
There are many reasons why an EdTech and no-code marriage makes sense, as well as some great examples of how it’s being used, which we will cover in this article. If you are looking at starting an EdTech platform or looking to improve the one you already have, read on.
Rapid Product Development
With an industry that is so buoyant and full of opportunity, speed to market is critical, which is one of the key reasons why no-code is so important to the EdTech industry. No-code is helping the EdTech industry get to market faster in multiple ways
- It specialises in building a swift minimum viable product. This is allowing EdTech to get their product in front of students quickly for feedback and then evolve it. It also allows them to approach investors early, gaining vital funds for growth
- There is a global shortage of developers. Not with no-code. It’s the one area of development where you can find highly qualified and cost-effective experts. So no delays in getting the job done
- The cost element also aids speed because EdTech companies using no-code are able to employ more developers at a time, thus completing the job faster
- No-code platforms come built with templates and many of the required functionality already created. The platforms are evolving and learning, becoming experts in sectors, so you’ll find so many of the standard EdTech features already in place
- The platforms also have automated testing in place, speeding up this important part of the development process
Another reason why no-code is being adopted so readily now in the education field is the need for constant change. These educational institutions are always looking for improved products, driven heavily by the people they support - the students.
This much younger demographic is used to rapid change within their daily lives, so they expect whatever they are using within the school environment to be just as advanced and to make the best use of modern technology.
If you are looking at no-code in education and for EdTech development in particular, you’ll be able to test out new ideas quickly, listen to feedback and incorporate change at pace, which is ideal in this sector that’s driving innovation.
A great example of this innovation that’s helping schools comes from MobyMax, an online learning platform. They identified a concern amongst educators about virtual learning and cheating - it’s so easy, how do we know students are not using Google to find the answers. Therefore they developed anti-cheating measures in their interactive learning experiences
Similar innovations to manage virtual exams are being experimented with and employed across EdTech by using no-code to quickly and cost-effectively test hypotheses and put in place the learnings, all in a fraction of the time it would take with traditional coding.
So Many Manual Jobs
Education is quite an old-fashioned industry and its transition to the digital age was much slower than many others. For that reason, the opportunity to make a difference is huge and one of those areas is efficiency and automation.
Institutions are looking for apps that can help them take paper-based processes and digitize them, bringing time and cost savings that are vital to cash-strapped schools and universities. The development of these types of apps is ripe for no-code use.
Anyone looking at no-code education app development to solve this problem can look at one of the many no-code platforms that specialize in workflow automation, like Gridfox, Make and Zapier.
Combining these no-code tools with a good database or other key integrations will allow an EdTech business to build apps to make educators more efficient and give them a product that they can administer themselves, removing the need for expensive ongoing support, which schools and universities always look to avoid.
Power To The Teachers
It isn’t just the EdTech businesses themselves that are making use of no-code, teachers and others working in education have been making use of the platforms themselves and creating simple apps to improve the classroom and the efficiency of their jobs.
Whilst larger and more complex applications might need developers to build them, if an individual spots a small problem that they believe could be solved with a simple workflow tool, database or to-do planner, then they are now empowered to complete that job themselves.
For example, a teacher that manually completes the same forms every day might decide to utilise something like Jotform Apps to automate this and have it in one place, making their job easier.
The added benefit of doing some of this work themselves is cost. These educational institutions are generally cash poor and always looking at ways to budget well and if they are able to make improvements without a big investment, then that’s an option they will always take.
Larger institutions like universities are supported by IT departments and these departments are turning to no-code platforms more and more. This is helping to lighten the load on their limited resources as demand for more internal apps grows.
These departments use tools like Lumicademy’s video conferencing platform. It can be used by the teachers directly, who are integrating it into other tools, like learning management systems, without the need of involving the IT teams.
It’s Not Just For Schools
There is another group that has been investigating no-code platforms as part of their journey and it’s the individual educators looking to build up a business around education but where the app itself is not the core product, just the method for managing things.
People looking to offer online courses, tutoring and other personalised learning options need to build apps that include features like course hosting; lesson booking; content creation; assignment tracking.
These features are built into most good EdTech-focused no-code platforms, enabling the individuals to build a basic app themselves or very cost-effectively engage a developer through a platform like WeLoveNoCode to create their much-needed digital presence.
So, whether you are looking to build an EdTech app, create something for your school or are just looking to build a personal education business, there is a no-code solution out there for you.
