In 2010, telecoms expert Swapnil Gadgil and speech and language therapist Rebecca Bright, MBE, founded the app development company Therapy Box. Their first app was the award winning AAC app Predictable, soon followed by ChatAble and Scene & Heard. After a few years, Swapnil and Rebecca began to focus on educational apps, alongside AAC. Skoodal is a branch of Therapy Box that specialises in educational apps, bringing together the wide ranging knowledge of our expert team in order to create apps that are unique, fun, and engaging for our users. Our team’s skill set ranges from speech and language therapy to design, and project management to app development. Based in West London, we are able to bring together our vast variety of skills in order to create top quality educational apps for our users. We truly take pride in the apps that we create, and are happy to see them so well awarded. The past two years alone have seen Therapy Box receive The Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation and The Nectar Small Business Award for Contribution to Community, whilst our co-founder and director Rebecca Bright was awarded an MBE for her inspiration to other women in the tech industry. In order to help deliver the best in educational apps, Skoodal is working closely with Dr Cheryl Dobbs, an Independent Consultant in Literacy and Assistive Technologies. Now based in Australia after working as a teacher in the UK, Cherly has extensive experience of working with educational technology. Her early teaching career and experience with literacy education began with teaching in mainstream primary schools and working (part-time) in an adult literacy unit. However, it was only when she later moved into the field of specialist provision and began working in educational day and residential settings (with young children and teenagers with additional physical, sensory, behavioural and/or learning issues), that Cheryl discovered a field of education which not only ignited a passionate interest in working with those with diverse needs but helped her to realise the lifelong issues of those experiencing difficulties with literacy. This period coincided with the emergence of technologies to support learning and so an enduring interest in their use to support literacy learning began. Cheryl’s knowledge, experience and expertise ensure that the apps that Skoodal delivers are truly beneficial educational resources for our users. Once a Skoodal app has been designed, developed and is ready for use on a device, our next step is thorough testing with children and school students. This way, we can see how children interact with our apps, what they like or dislike, and what we can do to produce the best experience for our young users. This step in the process is perhaps the most important, as it ensures that Skoodal apps are educational apps that kids truly love.
