Blackboard and Learning.com Partner to Make Vast Catalog of K-12 Content Available in Blackboard Learn

WASHINGTON, June 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackboard Inc., and Learning.com, an industry leader in K-12 digital curriculum and tools, today announced a partnership to help teachers create high quality online courses more quickly and easily with an integration that would make Learning.com's vast catalog of rich K-12 content and tools available directly in the Blackboard Learn™ learning management system (LMS).

The integration, which is currently being piloted by a number of K-12 institutions and will be generally available soon, lets teachers and administrators find, use and manage more than 200,000 digital learning resources from the Learning.com catalog seamlessly in the course platform, rather than having to move between systems. The Learning.com catalog includes both free and fee-based resources from leading education publishers and individual educators that are aligned to academic standards.

With access to the rich collection of material from Learning.com—including curriculum and textbook content, multimedia, assignments, quizzes and more—teachers can design a more engaging and intuitive learning experience. For example, teachers would build a lesson plan with material from Learning.com, and make it available to students through Blackboard Learn with a "single sign on," eliminating the time and access barriers from multiple Web sites, logins and passwords. Assignments would appear directly in the Blackboard Learn gradebook so teachers can easily track student progress.

"Students are demanding new types of content to support personalized learning and, as a result, teachers need smart ways to locate and manage rich material," said Matthew Small, Blackboard's Chief Business Officer. "By partnering with Learning.com, we plan to provide our clients with access to high-quality learning tools that help students succeed – whether a district curriculum, an innovative learning tool from a trusted provider or a unique activity designed by a peer."

"Our teachers love to incorporate third party content into coursework; however, up until now, materials were dispersed across multiple sites requiring a tremendous amount of time to find appropriate resources," said Alisa Jones, supervisor of instructional resources at Clay Virtual Academy. "The Learning.com and Blackboard partnership would allow our teachers to focus on leveraging the content in their classrooms rather than figuring out access issues."

The Learning.com catalog includes a growing collection of content from premier providers like USA Today, NASA, the Smithsonian, Waterford Institute, Adaptive Curriculum, and over 10,000 learning objects created and peer-reviewed by educators. Available content covers critical educational areas including language arts, library media, math, science, technology and professional development for teachers. All of the content can be searched by subject, grade level, academic standard, and keyword.

"Partnering with Blackboard means bringing together the best of what both organizations can offer the K-12 education market: Blackboard's user-friendly learning management system and Learning.com's growing collection of digital education content from premium providers," said Candace Petersen, Ph.D., president and chief operating officer of Learning.com. "We're pleased that Blackboard and Learning.com plan to bring more easy-to-use, robust learning opportunities to even more students."

The partnership is part of Blackboard's ongoing effort to make it easier for teachers and students to find, use and share digital content and tools. The Blackboard Learn platform supports a wide range of integrations for content from leading educational publishers and content providers.

The announcement was made at the 2012 International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference in San Diego.

For more information on the Blackboard and Learning.com partnership, please visit http://www.blackboard.com/learningdotcom and follow @BlackboardK12 for updates during the ISTE conference.

About Blackboard Inc.

Blackboard Inc. 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.

About Learning.com

Learning.com provides proven content, powerful tools, and practical services to support 21st century learners, align instruction to Common Core standards, and prepare students for next generation assessments. We offer free and fee-based standards-aligned curriculum and assessments to enhance and differentiate instruction, engage students, and increase test scores. In addition to award-winning content, we provide the implementation, support, and professional development tools and services that educators need to make the most of their resources and improve learning outcomes.  For more information, visit www.learning.com, and follow us at www.facebook.com/learningdotcom and www.twitter.com/learningdotcom.

Any statements in this press release about future expectations, plans and prospects for Blackboard represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release. Actual results may differ materially as a result of various important factors. 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 statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so.  

SOURCE Blackboard Inc.