Newcastle’s Sugata Mitra to Keynote Blackboard’s European User Conference

AMSTERDAM – 24 March, 2011 – Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) today announced details for the Teaching + Learning Conference (T+L), set to take place at the University of Leeds from April 11-13. One of the largest educational technology gatherings in the region, the event will draw attendees from Europe, the Middle East and Africa who will share ideas and best practices for teaching and learning with technology.

The event will feature more than 50 sessions on leveraging technology to address some of the most important challenges in education, including over 35 led by institutional attendees. Attendees will share best practices and develop knowledge and skills in using technology to promote student engagement and achievement. In addition to the general sessions, event keynotes will be presented by:

• Sugata Mitra, professor of educational technology at Newcastle University, whose “Hole-in-the-Wall” project demonstrated that children, using Internet-connected computers set up in parts of India by Mitra’s team, would teach themselves out of natural curiosity even without a teacher present.

• Ray Henderson, president of Blackboard Learn, who will share the latest on plans for the company’s continued investment in teaching and learning technologies, including Blackboard Learn™, Release 9.1, and efforts to make it easier for instructors and students to leverage digital content and tools.

• Kayvon Beykpour, vice president of Blackboard Mobile, who will offer an update on Blackboard’s development of innovative applications for mobile learning and for campus communities.

“Educators in the UK and throughout the region face a key dilemma: how to provide improved services and deliver better outcomes at a time when resources are increasingly scarce,” said Henderson. “This event provides an ideal venue for educators and technologists to share ideas on how to more successfully attack those challenges, and to engage with Blackboard leaders and experts on ways that we can better support them.”

A range of client and staff led sessions will focus on Release 9.1 of Blackboard Learn, the latest edition of the company’s leading online teaching and learning platform. Attendees will have direct access to Blackboard executives and technical experts who will answer questions about the upgrade process, give advice on current plans and provide insight into potential product plans and directions.

Blackboard Developer’s Day, a supplemental mini-conference session, will also take place on April 11. Developers, systems administrators and other technical support staffers will learn how to enhance Blackboard learning environments by using plug-ins, APIs, Web services, open standards as well as how to extend new functionality to students and instructors through institution-specific customization requirements.

More information on the T+L Conference 2011 is available at http://www.blackboard.com/Leeds2011.