Earlier this month, the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) talked to Manjinder Sangha, CEO and Founder of Kapture8, about her experience as a headteacher and the challenges and opportunities that edtech can create. Kapture8 is an innovative app and platform for teachers of practical subjects, such as Design and Technology, and Engineering.
Manjinder, please can you please explain what you mean by experiential learning and how does it help students in their learning process/knowledge acquisition?
Experiential learning is all about learning through doing. Learners connect to learning (skills development and knowledge acquisition) in a different way when practical activity is involved. It becomes ‘real’ to them. Using experience to learn is not a new notion by any means, in fact it’s what we do very naturally from our early years.
How much do you think education technology has a role to play to make teaching and learning easier?
Technology is changing the world around us, from the moment we wake up in our everyday lives, when we are travelling, shopping… it’s everywhere, making life easier in many ways. The education sector cannot avoid this – the truth is that the students we taught 10 or 15 years ago do not exist any more so we need to adopt edtech and use it to its full advantage to make teaching and learning easier. But it’s about choosing what works to enhance the teaching and learning experience and not what interrupts or hinders it.
What are the big trends that you foresee in digitisation in schools?
Digitisation in schools is happening currently, from a very basic level to a much more modern approach in an environment that embraces all that technology has to offer. I feel that on-demand learning, Big Data and AI and VR are the trends to watch out for and will have a big impact on teaching and learning in the near future.
How much do you also work with universities and colleges? What is different in working with them from working with schools?
Working with universities and colleges is very different! The organisational structures and procurement process differ, the people you need to talk to and their responsibilities, aspirations and lives are all very different to what is happening in schools.
You used to be a Deputy Head at a secondary school, what do you think are the main challenges for headteachers at the moment?
I think challenges for headteachers are never ending and each head in their school has their own individual challenges they are faced with. However, the depleting budgets and the increasing number of students and decreasing number of teachers coming into the profession are issues that all heads are facing. Just getting good results is now not enough and developing students for the real world that lies ahead of them is key, and we can only do this by adopting technology and working in an industrial manner.
For more information, visit www.kapture8.com
