What is educational software for schools?

Nowadays, educational processes rely heavily on information and communication technologies to achieve a comprehensive academic management. Some resources such as applications or even educational educational software play a crucial role to have a better control of what happens inside and outside the institution.

However, despite the fact that the educational software industry is educational software accumulates revenues of around US$10.85 billion and is expected to reach US$11.6 billion by 2025, it is still a topic to be explored. and is expected to reach US$11.6 billion by 2025, it is still a topic to be explored, especially for school managers and systems areas that wish to improve their academic management.

Therefore, in this content you will learn what an educational software iswhy it is important for a school to implement it and which are the best alternatives to do so.

Table of contents

What is educational software?
What is educational software for?
Characteristics of an educational software
Advantages of educational software
What types of educational software are there?
Main functions of an educational software
Why should a school have educational software?
What should be taken into account when choosing the right educational software?
Example of an educational software

1. What is educational software?

A educational software or software in education is a computer tool that integrates all areas of an educational institution to achieve a more efficient and coordinated academic management.

Among the areas that an educational educational software can cover include:

Billing
Academic
Financial
Accountant
Administrative
Customer service
Communication

A educational software is a highly comprehensive solution that centralizes all areas of a school so that there is a comprehensive management of information, where from managers to students and parents can interact easily.

2. What is the purpose of educational software?

A educational software serves to centralize all the areas that make up a school. In this way, each department can have tools to meet their needs and requirements.

This solution seeks to streamline academic management and increase the productivity of each of the areas, for example, teachers can concentrate on their school activities and focus their efforts on teaching.

How does educational software help a teacher? Find out! Motivation and school performance: what role does the teacher play?

It is important to understand that educational software is not only for didactic or pedagogical purposes.. It is a comprehensive solution that serves a school on several fronts, such as: academic, financial, security and communication.

3. Characteristics of an educational software

In order for an educational software to fulfill its purpose, it must have the following characteristics:

To provide comprehensive and centralized solutions to a school.
Be fully interactive.
Have the ability to assign roles and permissions.
To have a platform that can be accessed from anywhere without having to invest in infrastructure and the data is stored securely.

Taking into account that a software is a computer system comprising different logical components needed to perform specific tasks, none of the features listed above are optional.

4. Advantages of educational software

The use of innovative technologies opens up many opportunities in all areas, and for schools, this is no exception. A educational software allows to improve the education of students regardless of their level and age, but also, it offers integral advantages such as the following:

Facilitate internal communication among the educational community (students, family members and collaborators).
To have tools for secure information management.
Offer high-level management solutions, such as monitoring of school transportation or extracurricular activities for students.
Invoicing, collection and portfolio/collection management in an easy and fast way.
Provide user-friendly tools for enrollment, e.g., enrollment or academic quota inquiries.
Provide a wide range of non-academic processes that facilitate the school's personalized interaction with the solution.

It is important to clarify that not all educational software is designed for students, but also to meet the needs that a school may have in terms of management.but also to meet the needs that a school may have in terms of management.

5. What types of educational software are there?

There is a wide variety of educational software different objectives, actions and activities, but two of them are more focused on providing a comprehensive academic provide an integral academic management:

Software Information System

A Software Information System (SIS) is focused on managing the information of an institution, for example: registration of personal data, enrollment, management of academic data such as grades and planning.

Its objective is to carry out administrative, academic and financial activities that allow measuring the quality and efficiency of the service provided by a school. It allows for better processes and by systematizing the information, it makes it possible to analyze and obtain feedback that contributes to assertive decision making.

The types of SIS for schools are:

Administrative. Manage demographic, family and personal data.
Academic. They contain information on grades, evaluation processes, report generation and academic notebooks.
Financial. Designed for schools that need to comply with regulations such as electronic invoicing, online payments, collection management and portfolio analysis.
Communication. They manage communication between teachers and students; and, some more, with school administration and parents.
Hybrids. Their architecture incorporates some or all of the above, which provides greater technological support.

2. Learning Management System

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are software applications for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation and delivery of educational courses, training programs or learning and development programs.

Among its main features and functionalities are the following:

Intelligent integration. These systems typically integrate talent and workforce management, compliance platform, Human Resources Information System (HRIS), Human Capital Management (HCM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and payment processing on a single platform.
Content personalization. Education systems can look for personalized learning experiences that deliver the skills they need.
Blended learning frameworks. This system can provide a blended learning framework that can be adjusted according to the needs of a course.

Other types of educational software also include the following:

Didactic programs. These are pedagogical means that facilitate the teaching and learning process through the presentation of educational content, as well as practical or comprehension exercises. They may cover different disciplines and levels.
Tutorial programs. Programs that to a greater or lesser extent direct the work of the students and are aimed at carrying out activities that bring into play the capabilities, knowledge and skills of the students.
Simulators. They are a model or dynamic environment that facilitate the exploration and modification of students to perform inductive or deductive learning of different situations to speed up their decision making and acquire experience based on various simulations.
Digital tools. These are programs that provide instruments to facilitate the performance of certain tasks. Among the most popular are word processors, database managers, spreadsheets, graphic editors, communications programs, assisted experimentation programs and languages, and authoring systems.
Virtual encyclopedias. These are tools that speed up the search for information and can be consulted from anywhere.
Educational games (Gamification). They are didactic tools where users can learn about different topics; available for all ages and levels. Their objective is to keep students' attention and motivate them with rewards.

However, it should be noted that the first two educational software mentioned above are the most complete and are focused on meeting all the needs that revolve around a school. Their functionalities are not only limited to academic areas, but also to security issues.

6. Main functions of an educational software

The functions of an educational software depend on the use of the tool. However, some of the most outstanding functions are the following:

Academic planning, grade recording, reporting and management of student materials.
Administration of teaching material.
Student and teacher management.
Generation of invoices and payments.
Communication management.
Security management.

However, there are some educational software that provide these and more functions in a single centralized system. These are the most complete solutions that a school can implement to coordinate and streamline each of the areas that make it up.

7. Why should a school have educational software?

Currently, schools have different types of digital solutions to improve their academic management. However, very few have the necessary integration to meet all the needs of each area of the school.

For this reason, an educational software becomes essential to provide a correct management of all the information that involves the educational community, not only to have a punctual follow-up of teachers and students, but also to correctly manage financial and cybersecurity issues.

Learn more about cybersecurity in schools: Basic school cybersecurity tips you sometimes overlook

8. What should be taken into account when choosing the right educational software?

All schools have different needs, which is why an educational software educational software must be adjusted to them. Some points that any tool of this type has to comply with are the following:

Intuitive interface

A educational software must be easy to implement, understand and manage by any user within the school. Its exploration and navigation must have clear indications, concrete actions, different tools that facilitate the processes, as well as strategically placed elements, among others.

2. Easy to use

User experience is very important when choosing an educational software. educational software for schools, as it must be simple and easy to use. Although it is a very innovative tool, it has to be accessible to the different people who handle it every day.

In addition, it must have an optimized design for the different needs in functions and tools that each area of a school requires.

3. Coordination of all management areas

Regardless of the size of a school, an educational software must have the majority of each of the areas it comprises. This is one of its main functions, which, at the same time, facilitates communication between the entire school community: from the directors to the students and parents.

This also means that an educational software must have special tools and functions for each of the areas. Having these in turn, the objective of facilitating procedures, consultations, evaluations, as well as saving time and improving the efficiency of all those who are part of the school. All in one place and without the need for external configurations or implementations.

4. Support at all times

It is important to ensure that the supplier of the educational software has a help and support center available during the hours in which the institution works and under different communication channels.

9. Example of an educational software

A great example of what an educational educational software is the Phidias academic management system.

The Phidias educational software is a cloud-based platform that manages a school's processes through a secure, fast, intuitive and accessible from any device.

Among its main features are:

SecurityFirst-rate infrastructure
Integrationby centralizing a school's data and making it available at all times.
Supportby providing constant support before, during and after the implementation of the educational software.

A educational software can be divided into modules to offer comprehensive, yet customized solutions for each school's needs. In the case of the Phidias academic management systemacademic management system, it has a module for each of the key processes necessary in the management of an educational institution.

In this sense, the modules that Phidias has are:

1) Academic module

It allows to evaluate and consult subjects according to the grading scheme and facilitates the recording and analysis of academic results to make performance reports and provide real-time information to family and students.

Among its main functions are:

Administration and publication of strategic and curricular plan
Personalization of bulletins and grade books
Multiple assignment of teachers and course directors
Records management and academic plans
Generation and sending of newsletters and reports
Creation of homework and support material
Register of mentions and awards

2) Administration module

It manages the profile of students and their families and allows the analysis of school statistics for better administrative decision making. Some of its functions are:

Creation of unlimited profiles and users
Management of each family's information and contact details
Management of pending documents and permissions for each user

3) Admissions module

The admissions module allows you to register and provide further academic information. Among its functions are:

Online family and student registration
New student registration control
Creation of course enrollment quotas
Validation of online process registration and follow-ups

4) Transport module

If a school has a transportation service for its students, with this module it is possible to manage and administer routes, as well as to have a detailed record of passengers and news from any device. Among other functions are:

Registration and collection of vehicle information
Control of passenger data, arrivals and departures
On-line consultation of routes
Registration of news or incidents
Obtaining history, requests and maps

5) Extracurricular module

With this module, parents can enroll their children in additional subjects to the curriculum easily and quickly. Some outstanding functions are:

Define which students can enroll in extracurricular activities.
Check registration fees
Allocation of quotas by activity
Facilitation of invoices for extra materials

6) Communication module

This module manages all the school's communication in different channels, the main ones being email, web and mobile applications. Among its functions, the following stand out:

Sending internal, mass and individual messages
Sending of communiqués and circulars
Embedding forms and videos in messages
Agenda of meetings and tutorials

7) Tracking module

With this module, schools can have total control of their non-academic processes in a personalized and unlimited way. Its main functions are:

Registration of tutoring reports
Special notes on individual students
Monitoring of students' eating habits
Disciplinary and merit monitoring

8) Treasury module

This module is specially designed for document planning and invoice management for all school activities and operations. It has the following features:

Electronic invoicing
Customized templates

9) On-line process

Within this module users can conduct surveys, collect authorizations, make registrations or promote data update campaigns. Some other functions are:

Organization of face-to-face or online registration processes
Pre-registration and registration planning and processing
Conducting surveys and voting
Update of student and family data

10) Education Intelligence

This module is very innovative as it allows to study the historical behavior of students' academic results, all through graphs and dashboards with key indicators. Here users can:

Perform statistical analysis of the results
Obtaining graphical representations of your plant data
To use the results obtained for decision making.

In addition, as is visible, there is a Phidias for every customerwhich means that this educational software is able to adapt to the needs of each school in both configuration and use.

By allowing access to information from a single centralized database, Phidias can perform any operation from anywhere and at any time, all securely and with the certainty that each user will make use of the tools and functions that are relevant to the area in which it is developed.

To receive more detailed attention on how Phidias educational software can support your academic management, we invite you to click on this link link.