Washington, DC, September 26, 2007—Blackboard Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBB) and Wimba today announced a definitive agreement to distribute Wimba Collaboration Suite Express™ to Blackboard® K-12 schools and districts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. This strategic alliance will provide new and existing Blackboard Learning System™ clients (including Blackboard Learning System—Basic Edition clients) access to the Wimba Collaboration Suite Express, at no additional cost.
The Wimba Collaboration Suite Express facilitates online access to voice, video and instant messaging tools (among other tools for today’s 21st Century learners) for instructors and students to enhance teaching and learning.
Under terms of the agreement, Blackboard will distribute the Wimba Collaboration Suite Express, which includes limited versions of Wimba Classroom™, Wimba Voice™, and Wimba Pronto™ to its K-12 clients. The new partnership provides a unique benefit to members of the Blackboard K-12 community who will gain easy, free access to the industry’s leading multi-modal solution for virtual and blended classes, professional development, and intercession and tutoring.
“Today’s teachers and administrators seek new ways to deliver a more engaging learning experience to their students,” said Jessie Woolley-Wilson, President of K-12 at Blackboard. “Increasingly, the new school environment is empowered by technologies that can be seamlessly integrated into the learning experience at the point of instruction. These technologies can help close the gap between how students live and how they learn. Blackboard and Wimba’s alliance will provide a collaborative learning environment for a more engaging, individualized educational process that empowers 21st Century learning communities.”
Benefits of the New Alliance to the K-12 Community
As K-12 schools face increasing challenges related to a growing knowledge economy, many are leveraging learning technologies to impact student outcomes, teacher development, student engagement and attendance. The Blackboard and Wimba partnership will enable districts, independent, private and virtual schools to take advantage of some of Wimba’s most powerful capabilities to:
• Engage auditory learners through voice discussion boards and voice authoring
• Strengthen class community through education-centric instant messaging
• Facilitate teacher development through online workshops, meetings, and mentoring
• Improve learning flexibility and impact through virtual classrooms
“Teachers and administrators are seeking new ways to better engage students and enhance learning,” said Tommaso Trionfi, CEO of Wimba. “Through this partnership, members of the Blackboard K-12 community will gain a unique opportunity to access the Wimba Collaboration Suite Express quickly, easily and at no additional cost. We are excited to join with Blackboard, a leading provider of K-12 learning management platforms to accelerate a new era for the K-12 community.”
Blackboard and Wimba plan to launch the initial distribution of Wimba Collaboration Suite Express to Blackboard K-12 clients at the end of 2007. For more information about this new offering, please visit www.blackboard.com/K12.
About Blackboard Inc.
Blackboard Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBB) is a leading provider of enterprise software applications and related services to the education industry. Founded in 1997, Blackboard enables educational innovations everywhere by connecting people and technology. Millions of people use Blackboard everyday at academic institutions around the globe, including colleges, universities, K-12 schools and other education providers, as well as textbook publishers and student-focused merchants that serve education providers and their students. Blackboard is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia.
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