Blackboard Delivers Continued Innovation Across its Teaching and Learning Suite

NEW ORLEANS, July 26, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackboard Inc., a leading education technology company for teaching, learning and student engagement, continues to deliver new features and enhancements across its teaching and learning portfolio, helping learners, teachers and administrators achieve better outcomes through a seamless and unified user experience. The company's solutions show continued momentum around the world, with institutions, businesses and government entities recognizing the importance of providing a holistic solution to the educational needs of their learners. The announcement was made at BbWorld 2017, Blackboard's annual conference focused on helping institutions meet the needs of their learners, taking place July 25-27 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

"We continue to focus our resources and investments to drive innovation across our entire portfolio, and bring our clients the solutions they need today and tomorrow," said Phillip Miller, Vice President of Teaching and Learning at Blackboard. "This is why we are proud to showcase all the new features and capabilities we have delivered to improve the educational experience."

Over the past 12 months, Blackboard has released enhancements for its teaching and learning solutions and in particular for Blackboard Learn, Moodlerooms, the Blackboard app for students and Blackboard Collaborate. It has also launched Blackboard Ally, the accessibility solution that helps make course content more accessible for all learners, and Blackboard Instructor, a mobile app for instructors to manage courses, view content, and interact with students.

Blackboard Learn

Thanks to a regular release of new features, enhancements and quality checks delivered in the last 12 months, Blackboard Learn is the most complete and robust Learning Management System (LMS) available on the market. With three deployment methods – self-hosted, managed hosted and Software as a Service (SaaS) – and two user experiences – Original and Ultra Experience – Blackboard Learn offers unmatched flexibility, enabling clients to adapt the LMS to their specific requirements and support academic success. Key new features include:

• Blackboard Ally integration
• Enhanced responsiveness and mobile optimization
• Additional drag and drop options and workflow enhancements
• Certification for IMS LTI 2.0

During the last year, Blackboard has also expanded the availability of the SaaS delivery mode and the optional Ultra experience beyond the United States. These options are now also available in Australia, Europe, New Zealand, and Singapore.

Moodlerooms

Moodlerooms 3.2 is the latest version of Blackboard's cloud solution dedicated to institutions and organizations leveraging the open source Moodle platform. Released at the beginning of July, it includes all the recent updates available with Moodle 3.2.3 and Mahara 16.10. Key new features include:

• Blackboard Ally integration
• New media player with improved accessibility 
• Learning Tools Interoperability 2 (LTI 2) compliance 
• SmartEvidence (preview) and IntelliBoard 4.7 support

Blackboard Ally

Blackboard Ally is the accessibility solution that integrates with the LMS and helps make course content more accessible for all learners. Launched in May, Blackboard Ally is now available in U.S. and UK English, Spanish and Dutch, and it seamlessly integrates with Blackboard Learn, Moodlerooms and Canvas LMS platforms, enabling more institutions to meet the needs of students with different learning abilities. Blackboard Ally key functionalities include:

• Automatic check of content materials and creation of more accessible alternatives
• Feedback to instructors on accessibility of their online course content
• Institutional and course level reports

Blackboard Collaborate

Blackboard's virtual collaborative learning solution has been the first to implement the Ultra experience, winning clients' favor thanks to high-fidelity audio and video capabilities, ease of use and a sleek design. Completely browser-based, Blackboard Collaborate has been further enriched in past months with new capabilities including:

• Polling
• Breakout groups
• Persistent content for multiple sessions use
• Private chat
• Sessions scale to 500 participants

Blackboard app for students

Formerly known as Bb Student, the Blackboard app for students is a persona-based mobile app that integrates Blackboard Learn and Blackboard Collaborate, enabling students to stay up-to-date on their academic progress and requirements. Some of the latest enhancements include:

• Additional languages, including Arabic and Hebrew
•  Integration with Dropbox and Google
• Calculated grade totals

Blackboard Instructor

The Blackboard Instructor app is designed around core instructor workflows and delivers a user-friendly mobile interface that helps educators increase efficiency, amplify student engagement and quickly complete critical activities inside and outside of the classroom. Key functionalities include:

• Access to courses, content and discussion boards
• Ability to create, review and send out announcements to students
• Ability to join or host Blackboard Collaborate sessions

The Blackboard app for students and Blackboard Instructor are proof points of Blackboard's "mobile first" product strategy. Over the past year, the company has also delivered improved design responsiveness for its solutions and is further investing to bring education right into the hands of teachers and learners.

About Blackboard

Our mission is to partner with the global education community to enable learner and institutional success, leveraging innovative technologies and services. With an unmatched understanding of the world of the learner, the most comprehensive student-success solutions, and the greatest capacity for innovation, Blackboard is education's partner in change.

CONTACT
Massimo Morigi, Blackboard Inc.
202-303-9314 or [email protected]

SOURCE Blackboard Inc.

Related Links

http://www.blackboard.com