WASHINGTON, March 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Blackboard
Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) today announced plans for Blackboard Mobile
Learn™, an application that will bring two-way teaching and
learning to mobile devices, creating an interactive mobile learning
experience for students and teachers on the go.
Blackboard's existing Blackboard Mobile Central™
application already delivers a mobile campus experience that
includes news, events, maps and sports among a range of student
life and service options. Blackboard Mobile Learn will take
the next step by bringing the classroom experience and learning
content to the mobile environment, arming campuses with a high
quality option to quickly meet the growing demand from students who
want to do more with their smartphones and other Web-enabled
devices.
With Blackboard Mobile Learn, students will be able to
check grades and assignments, add comments to discussion boards,
email instructors and classmates and post comments on blogs – all
from their mobile devices.
"We're seeing greater interest in education focused mobile
applications, and this is the first to give students such a robust
teaching and learning experience," said Michael L. Chasen, Blackboard's President and
CEO. "We see mobile as a transformative technology in engaging
students, and we're rolling out options that let institutions get
started quickly and in some cases without any additional
investment."
Blackboard Mobile Learn will recreate and enrich the
course experience of Blackboard Learn™, the leading
Web-based teaching and learning platform, in native mobile
applications that in June will support a selection of the world's
most popular mobile platforms including iPhone® OS, Android and
BlackBerry®. Like Blackboard Mobile Central, Blackboard
Mobile Learn is available through an annual license, will be
branded under the school's name, and can be downloaded by students
and faculty at mobile application stores.
Schools that are interested in experimenting with mobile
learning on their campus for no additional charge can enable Wi-Fi
access to Blackboard Mobile Learn on devices such as the
iPhone and iPod touch® and, through a special partnership with
Sprint (NYSE: S), on select smartphones powered by the Now
Network™. The no cost options are intended to help institutions
get started quickly without extra investments.
"Mobile adoption is happening faster than we expected, and it is
being driven by changes in the way students want to consume
information," said Brice Bible,
Chief Information Officer at Ohio
University. "Bringing the classroom experience to mobile
devices is something that students and faculty are clearly looking
for, and as we develop our strategy I'm excited about the
possibilities of Blackboard Mobile Learn. Blackboard's ideas
for mobile learning have a lot of merit."
Blackboard Mobile Learn will be available initially for
U.S. and Puerto Rico higher
education and professional education clients on Blackboard Learn
Releases 8, 9 and higher. Details on availability for K-12 and
international markets, as well as for previous versions of
Blackboard Learn and the WebCT and ANGEL platforms, will
follow. Blackboard Mobile Learn will be enabled with the
free Blackboard Mobile Web Services Building Block™, which
is available for download today at Blackboard's client support Web
site, Behind the Blackboard™.
For more information about Blackboard Mobile Learn,
please visit http://blackboard.com/Mobile/Overview.aspx.
About Blackboard Inc.
Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) is a global leader in enterprise
technology and innovative solutions that improve the experience of
millions of students and learners around the world every day.
Blackboard's solutions allow thousands of higher education, K-12,
professional, corporate, and government organizations to extend
teaching and learning online, facilitate campus commerce and
security, and communicate more effectively with their communities.
Founded in 1997, Blackboard is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in North America, Europe, Asia
and Australia.
Any statements in this press release about future
expectations, plans and prospects for Blackboard and other
statements containing the words "believes," "anticipates," "plans,"
"expects," "will," and similar expressions, constitute
forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ
materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements
as a result of various important factors, including the factors
discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of our Form 10-K filed
on February 17, 2010 with the SEC. In
addition, the forward-looking statements included in this press
release represent the Company's views as of March 22, 2010. The Company anticipates that
subsequent events and developments will cause the Company's views
to change. However, while the Company may elect to update these
forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company
specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These
forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as
representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to
March 22, 2010.
SOURCE Blackboard Inc.