Performance
Achievement
Innovation
Engagement
Community
Blackboard K-12
®
Learning Management
Platform
Unifying the Four Key Pillars of K-12 Teaching and Learning
OUR MISSION:
“To enable educational innovations everywhere
by connecting people and technology.”
Academic performance
improves here
Check the choice below that most closely resembles your top teaching and learning priority:
Engaging student learning in and out of the classroom
Enhancing options for continuous professional development
Creating a central destination for collaboration, community and content
Tracking the impact of curriculum and resources on student and school progress
All of the above
Supported by our proven experience in higher education, Blackboard® provides an integrated
software platform designed for the K-12 learning community that enables each of these priorities.
We help students and teachers achieve their goals in a more cohesive, productive and supportive
learning environment.
A Comprehensive, Easy-To-Use Learning Mangement Platform
Blackboard is the recognized standard for delivering the most effective and efficient e-Learning
solutions to the K-12 community. Built on open architecture, the Blackboard Academic Suite™ is
the trusted e-Learning solution used by school districts and service agencies in 46 U.S. States
and over a dozen countries.
Blackboard powers learning in over 1,200 US schools
41 of the top 100 American high schools named by Newsweek
rely on Blackboard software
Odds are nearly one-in-two that today’s college-bound graduates will go on
to learn on Blackboard
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LMP
LMP
INSTRUCTIONAL
DELIVERY AND
CURRICULUM
MANAGEMENT
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
COMMUNITY AND
COMMUNICATIONS
EVALUATION AND
ASSESSMENT
What’s the Learning Technology Challenge?
Many school districts today operate in a world of scattered tools and disparate silos of
instructional and administrative technology. Numerous applications. Multiple logins and
little or no integration. Teachers having to direct students to multiple content objects and
Web sites instead of one cohesive location. All this at a time when the need for academic
performance and efficiency is more critical than ever.
Simplicity
To eliminate technology clutter and increase academic performance, schools are looking
for a central online hub, or Learning Management Platform (LMP), that unifies four key
pillars of K-12 teaching and learning while incorporating the school’s critical existing
technology and content.
Instructional Delivery and Curriculum Management
Professional Development
Communication and Community
Evaluation and Assessment
LMP: A Powerful Foundation for the
Next Generation of Learning.
The Blackboard Academic Suite is our proven Learning Management Platform (LMP).
Marrying comprehensive capability with renowned ease of use, the Blackboard
Academic Suite integrates proven instructional management, content management and
community portal applications into a single platform. This is the LMP that will power
academic performance and simplify the learning management process across your
school or district.
Make the most of your existing assets
No single technology solution can address all your school or district’s needs. But the Blackboard Academic Suite brings your school’s
technology landscape into focus by integrating the core elements of effective and efficient instruction into one central place. The Academic
Suite easily connects and aligns critical resources with the data and standards you need.
Student Information Systems/ERPs/Data Warehouses
Third party tools and instructional content
Support of standards (SIF, IMS, SCORM)
The end result is a powerful Learning Management Platform that unlocks the potential synergies across your
existing tools and organizes them to achieve the best possible user experience.
The Blackboard Academic Suite & the four pillars of K-12 Teaching and learning
INSTRUCTIONAL
DELIVERY AND
INSTRUCTIONAL
CURRICULUM
DELIVERY
AND
MANAGEMENT
CURRICULUM
MANAGEMENT
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
COMMUNITY AND
COMMUNICATIONS
COMMUNITY AND
COMMUNICATIONS
EVALUATION AND
ASSESSMENT
EVALUATION AND
ASSESSMENT
Greater Engagement
Blackboard profoundly enhances both instructional delivery and curriculum management at the classroom level. We’ll help you
deliver distance, blended or supplemental instruction by providing a forum for content and collaboration. Blackboard also makes it
fast and easy for teachers to find and deploy learning resources, assign them, assess against them and successfully manage student
progress through the curriculum.
Every day, teachers work with students demonstrating a wide range of abilities and rates of progress. Blackboard technology makes
it easier for teachers to differentiate and customize learning paths for their students.
Blackboard also recognizes that teachers draw curriculum and activities from a variety of sources. That’s why our Learning Management
Platform delivers multiple curriculum options such as publisher content, streaming media and teacher-created materials in hundreds
of different formats.
Case Study
Baltimore City Public School System
Recent federal and state education legislation has established laudable goals - high standards, accountability
for all and the belief that all children can learn, regardless of their background or ability. But like many urban
school districts with a growing English-as-a-second-language (ESL) population, the Baltimore City Public School
System faced a number of challenges in its efforts to comply with federal NCLB legislation. The district is meeting
this challenge in part with the Blackboard Academic Suite. By taking advantage of Blackboard’s ability to run
multiple languages on the same system, ESL teachers can help ease the transition of students who are not native
speakers of English simply by setting language preferences within Blackboard.
Blackboard allows a teacher to manage learning resources and
efficently provide tests, homework assignments and learning objects
in their learning environment.
“By using Blackboard, adding content is as easy as making an attachment to an
e-mail. Our teachers appreciate that. I always use that same analogy in training
and find that it erases all of their fears about working on the Internet.”
Bert Ross
Manager of Teacher Support System
Baltimore City Public School System
The Blackboard Academic Suite & the four pillars of K-12 Teaching and learning
INSTRUCTIONAL
DELIVERY AND
INSTRUCTIONAL
CURRICULUM
DELIVERY
AND
MANAGEMENT
CURRICULUM
MANAGEMENT
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
COMMUNITY AND
COMMUNICATIONS
COMMUNITY AND
COMMUNICATIONS
EVALUATION AND
ASSESSMENT
EVALUATION AND
ASSESSMENT
Improved Instruction
Blackboard enhances the quality of instruction with anywhere, anytime professional development.
Two of the greatest challenges involved with delivering professional development are the constraints of time and space. Limiting
professional development to one-off training on specific days throughout the school year simply is not as effective as instruction that can
be reinforced and supported over time.
Blackboard helps districts launch successful and innovative new approaches to professional development that address a wide range
of educator training and continuing education challenges. With Blackboard, teachers can find all of the professional development
coursework they need, professional communities of practice that break the isolation of the classroom, and professional resources such
as lesson plan development and curriculum building.
Case Study
Broward County Public School System
Broward County in Florida, the nation’s sixth-largest school district, uses Blackboard to offer over 100 online professional
development courses to its educators. Meeting the professional development needs of over 17,000 teachers was a monumental
task but Broward County has met the challenge with a forward-thinking program called “Broward Virtual University.” They
use Blackboard learning management and portal technologies to offer over 100 online professional development courses in
core subjects such as reading, writing and math, and a wide variety of other topics. Blackboard solutions provide anytime,
anywhere access so teachers can take courses at their convenience. The program is off to an impressive start. In the last 18
months alone, an estimated 8,000 teachers have enrolled in courses.
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Sarasota School District turns in-service into everyday professional
learning by helping teachers take courses at their convenience,
connect with a larger network of peers and access materials and
lesson plans anytime, anywhere.
“We are using Blackboard’s e-learning software products to provide readily
available, cost-effective resources for professional development and other
requirements mandated by the No Child Left Behind legislation.”
Nancy Barba
Director, Program Development and Alignment / Online Learning
Broward County Public School System
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The Blackboard Academic Suite & the four pillars of K-12 Teaching and learning
INSTRUCTIONAL
DELIVERY AND
INSTRUCTIONAL
CURRICULUM
DELIVERY
AND
MANAGEMENT
CURRICULUM
MANAGEMENT
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
COMMUNITY AND
COMMUNICATIONS
COMMUNITY AND
COMMUNICATIONS
EVALUATION AND
ASSESSMENT
EVALUATION AND
ASSESSMENT
Boundless Collaboration
The concept of community is evolving in today’s schools as students increasingly interact via e-mail, discussion boards and blogs in their
extra and co-curricular activities. Blackboard is helping school districts integrate these technologies, moving them into the classroom to
enhance instruction and better engage today’s “digital natives.”
Using the Blackboard platform, K-12 institutions can deliver a spectrum of instructional content, resources and essential information to
teachers, students and parents. Whenever and wherever they need. Blackboard’s powerful role-based information delivery and ability to
help K-12 schools develop unique online identities assure that every learning community member gets the right information, at the right
place, and at the right time.
This is the efficient and personalized experience students and parents have come to expect in life outside of school. Now Blackboard
brings this innovation to your classroom by keeping students (and their parents) plugged-in to their studies when they return home.
Case Study
Sycamore Community Schools
Sycamore Community Schools adopted the Blackboard Academic Suite to enhance communication between
educators and the community and to improve student achievement. Today, 85% of Sycamore’s teachers are
using Blackboard software to communicate with parents and enhance classroom instruction. The district
even uses Blackboard as its external Web Site. The superintendent of the school district has gone as far as to
mandate that every teacher maintain a Blackboard course site by the end of the 2005-2006 school year. The
district also takes advantage of Blackboard’s ability to delegate content management rights as a means of
shifting focus from administering technology to delivering education and information.
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Sycamore Community Schools in Ohio uses Blackboard as their
primary academic gateway to the district’s online resources, helping
to foster greater access to role-based information as well as creating a
more cohesive community.
“Technology integration and parent communication are standards by
which our teachers are evaluated —both by the administration and by the
community. So when budgets are getting crunched, the Blackboard line item
is not even questioned. There’s an understanding throughout the district that
it has to be there.”
William Fritz
District Technology Coordinator
Sycamore Community Schools
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The Blackboard Academic Suite & the four pillars of K-12 Teaching and learning
INSTRUCTIONAL
DELIVERY AND
INSTRUCTIONAL
CURRICULUM
DELIVERY
AND
MANAGEMENT
CURRICULUM
MANAGEMENT
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
COMMUNITY AND
COMMUNICATIONS
COMMUNITY AND
COMMUNICATIONS
EVALUATION AND
ASSESSMENT
EVALUATION AND
ASSESSMENT
Informed Progress
To address federal and state accountability requirements, evaluation and assessment capabilities are more important to school districts
today than ever. But evaluation and assessment are important not only in terms of testing, but in helping teachers choose the most
appropriate learning content and apply differentiated instruction.
Blackboard enables teachers and administrators to track and assess student progress with the Performance Dashboard that indicates
whether students have reviewed specific content items and enables usage data to be viewed for an entire course. A built-in assessment
engine with automated grading and analysis can draw from teacher and publisher-created question pools for both formative and summative
assessments. Assignment and assessment capabilities integrate seamlessly with gradebook and reporting capabilities that are accessible
to teachers, administrators, and parents.
Case Study
Amarillo Independent School District
To align curriculum standards and instructional resources, the Amarillo Independent School System made
the decision to leverage the capabilities of the Blackboard Academic Suite. In the past, these resources were
only available through a specific terminal within the district. Today, all of the district’s curriculum documents
are password-protected and housed in Blackboard. Teachers have access to them at home or anywhere else
with an Internet connection. Furthermore, links are available to teachers and staff to support collaboration of
information and instructional resources. With this phase of development complete, Amarillo ISD is taking the
next steps to tie staff development to curriculum standards with online book studies and discussion groups.
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Blackboard allows teachers to deliver automatically-scored
assessments and surveys using over a dozen different question types
(e.g., True/False, Multiple Choice, Calculated).
“Blackboard enables teachers to access the materials they need to be
successful. In the past, access to our curriculum standards and instructional
resources was quite limited. By hosting them via Blackboard, teachers now
have access to them anywhere they have an Internet connection. The end
result is improved student performance.”
Dirk Funk
Instructional Technology Facilitator
Tascosa Cluster, Amarillo Independent School District
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“How I Used
Blackboard Today”
For many school districts, Blackboard is an integral part of the
daily educational experience. Hear it in their own words:
Julie Wallace
6th Grade History Teacher
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Omar Robinson
High School Senior
Vicki Sanchez
Parent of 4th grader
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“The future of Hacienda La Puente USD and that of K-12 education relies upon the ability
to create, promote and sustain an online community in support of learning anytime
and anywhere. Such a community needs a solid, intuitive and reliable operating
foundation that supports the knowledge capture, collaboration and organization that
is critical to building relations within an online community. The Blackboard Academic
Suite provides this foundation and is the cornerstone to our online community.”
Michael Droe
Chief Technology Officer
Hacienda La Puente, USD
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The Blackboard Advantage
The Largest e-Learning Community of Practice
Unlimited Options, Open Systems
At Blackboard we believe that a vibrant community drives
innovation – our mission is to enable them to do so. As part
of the Blackboard community, you gain access to one of the
largest K-12 online education communities in the U.S. More
than 12 million people at over 2,200 institutions in 60 countries
use Blackboard solutions to advance education, professional
development and community. Our clients communicate with
each other in myriad ways including independent e-mail lists,
user groups and Blackboard-sponsored user conferences. And
many take advantage of Blackboard Connections, a central hub
where our users can collaborate and share best practices to
deepen their knowledge and expertise in all things Blackboard.
The architecture underlying the Blackboard Academic Suite
is flexible, extensible and open. What does that mean to you?
Both choice and ease-of-use. You’ll have the ability to leverage
the investments you’ve already made by integrating existing
technology into Blackboard. You will avoid obsolescence as new
technologies emerge. Hundreds of academic and commercial
developers use Blackboard’s Building Blocks® technology
to create sharable, reusable learning applications that can be
deployed on the Blackboard Academic Suite platform. And
just as importantly, you’ll maintain the stability associated with
Blackboard’s fully-supported and time-tested solutions.
Solutions for All Stages and Sizes
Blackboard solutions are designed to meet a diverse range of
implementation goals. Whether you are just launching an eLearning initiative in your school or are considering an enterprisewide deployment across hundreds of sites, Blackboard has the
demonstrated experience to help you at a pace and scope that
works best for your institution’s unique needs. Our team currently
supports K-12 deployments at school, district, regional, state and
national levels, ranging from some of the largest urban districts in
the U.S. to some of the most rural corners of the country.
Join Us
Everyday, thousands of K-12 students and educators around the
world are learning and innovating with the help of Blackboard
solutions. The Blackboard K-12 team and our clients welcome
the opportunity to share with you how our Learning Management
Platform is enabling K-12 institutions like yours to meet their
goals.
Exceptional Service and Support
With Blackboard, you have a large, specialized K-12 team to
support your success. When you have a technical challenge,
your dedicated Technical Support Manager is available to
provide solutions. Your dedicated Account Manager’s job is to
connect you with the resources within Blackboard and the larger
community of practice. Blackboard Global Services works with
you to maximize value and achieve your e-Learning goals. Our
team, comprised of former educators, instructional technologists
and system administrators, provides software customization,
project management, data integration and user training. In
addition, Blackboard ASP Services offers solutions that reduce
hardware costs and relieve your team of day-to-day administrative
functions.
To learn more about
increasing academic
performance with the
Blackboard Academic Suite,
visit our Web site at:
www.blackboard.com/inpractice/k12
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