To continue to meet the needs of its employees and students, Pasadena ISD is using the Blackboard Academic Suite from Blackboard, Inc. to help advance teaching and learning with technology.

Blackboard Academic Suite is a comprehensive group of integrated applications including the Blackboard Learning System, Blackboard Content System and Blackboard Community System that focus on teaching, learning, community-building and knowledge-sharing. Collaboratively, these applications provide the district with a consistent and familiar user environment on a single technology platform that benefits both students and employees.

“Online professional development for the staff and the establishment of a virtual school were the initial goals driving the implementation of the Blackboard solution,” said the district’s executive director of instructional technology Denise Gooden.

The program has made it possible for the district to implement various online learning and instructional systems including seven professional development course, six virtual school courses, six individual school websites, one curriculum and instruction resource course, 18 homebound courses, 100 courses for companion sites, six special groups courses and one course for time sheet usage.

“Blackboard provides online professional development that can be accessed any place any time, and students gain experience in learning virtually. These skills are needed as students move forward in their educational process,” Gooden said.

Teachers are able to create a companion site for their face-to-face course which students can access from home and find resources the teacher has posted. Each teacher also has storage space within the Blackboard system for instructional materials.

Currently districtwide there are 136 active Blackboard courses, 631 active users, 64 instructor users and 3,470 users.

“Blackboard is designed for teachers and students, and it provides the course management system for the development and implementation of online learning content,” said Gooden. “Providing an e-learning environment that was both easy to use and robust led us to Blackboard. The format is consistent and follows a folder system design that is familiar to educators. We have been very pleased with the success of the system, and we are looking forward to it growing even more.”