With nearly 30,000 students at 57 schools, the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board is the first school board in the Hamilton area to connect to ORION, joining 21 other Ontario school boards already connected.

ORION currently connects approximately 960,000 elementary and secondary school students across the province. By connecting, schools can enjoy enhanced quality videoconferencing when participating in the many distance learning programs offered by Canada's leading cultural and educational organizations, such as the Virtual Researcher on Call (VROC) program, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Canadian Museum of Nature, and the Canadian Space Agency.

"We look forward to leveraging the ORION network for new and exciting initiatives and collaborating with similar educational institutions from around the world," says Patricia Amos, Director of Education. "Our students and staff will greatly benefit from the fast access to online academic and research resources, multi-media content and digitized materials."

"We welcome the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board to ORION," says Phil Baker, ORION President and CEO. "It's exciting to see more students gain access to more educational resources and new learning opportunities over the network. We're moving closer to our goal of providing all of Ontario's K-12 students with access to ORION and the advanced resources and capabilities it enables."  

About ORION
The Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION) is Ontario's ultra high-speed research and education network. It connects all of Ontario's universities, most colleges, several medical and other public research facilities and a growing number of school boards to one another, as well as to CANARIE, Canada's advanced network organization, and to the global grid of research and education networks. ORION now connects over 1.3 million Ontario researchers, scientists, students, teachers and staff to critical infrastructure for research, education and innovation. Learn more at www.orion.on.ca.

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Media Contacts:
Tamara Stoll
Communications Officer, ORION
416-507-9860 ext. 224
tamara.stoll@orion.on.ca

Marnie Jadon
Communication Officer
Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board
905-525-2930 ext. 2263
jadonm@hwcdsb.ca