Smartphone Apps Will Drive Student Engagement and Enhance Learning Support

AMSTERDAM – 14 September, 2010 – Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) today announced that The University of Manchester has signed a three year agreement for Blackboard Mobile™ Central and Blackboard Mobile™ Learn, mobile applications that bring the campus experience and two-way teaching and learning capabilities to BlackBerry®, Android™ and iPhone® OS powered devices. The university considers the delivery of personalised learning content to mobile devices a central part of its commitment to provide the best in education technology and exceed learner expectations, as well as a winning complement to its Blackboard virtual learning environment.

With over 10,000 new and potential students visiting the institution’s large city centre campus each year, Blackboard Mobile Central is an ideal way to give visitors access to valuable information on the move. The application, specially branded for the institution, delivers news, events, maps and sports amongst a range of student life and service to new and existing students and members of the university community.

And with the largest number of full time students of any university in the U.K., Blackboard Mobile Learn will deliver an interactive teaching and learning experience to support learners and instructors who want to do more from their smartphones or mobile enabled devices. Using the application, students can check grades and assignments, email their classmates and instructors, add discussion board comments, post onto blogs and much more.

“As a large and ever growing proportion of students, staff and visitors use mobile devices as an everyday tool, Blackboard’s mobile applications will provide a very accessible gateway to the institution in ways that are so much more immediate than non mobile devices,” said Professor Colin Stirling, Vice-President, Teaching and Learning at the University of Manchester. “We are looking to the Blackboard Mobile platform to assist us in engaging staff and students in the teaching and learning process in an interactive way.”

“Mobile Learning has huge potential for institutions looking to enhance student engagement and meet student expectations,” said Aaron Wasserman, Director of Blackboard Mobile. “The university’s students are accustomed to using their mobile phone to access information and interact with friends and colleagues in their day to day lives, and I’m sure they will appreciate their institution’s commitment to enable them to leverage mobile apps in an educational setting.”

For more information on Blackboard Mobile™, including video demos of Blackboard Mobile Learn and Blackboard Mobile Central on BlackBerry, Android and iPhone OS devices, please visit http://www.blackboard.com/Mobile/Mobile-Learn/Device-Demos.aspx.