Exclusive to ORION-connected schools

ORION has joined forces with Learn360, a leading interactive, educational media on-demand service, to provide an enhanced user experience when accessing Learn360's educational content to ORION-connected schools across Ontario at a significant cost savings and enhanced quality.

"All Ontario schools have access to the Learn360 content over the Internet. However, schools able to access the streamed resources over ORION report a faster, more robust and higher quality experience," says Tim Kim, ORION Business Development Consultant.

"The impact of this relationship will be dramatic for us," said Ken Broomer, Supervisor, Network and Network Security, Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. "By downloading high-bandwidth content over ORION, instead of the Internet, our school board will be able to deliver high quality applications without contending with limited resources on our Internet connection," he said. "It's a win-win."

ORION-connected schools - now representing more than one million elementary and secondary students across Ontario - are now able to access Learn360's online catalogue of over 8,000 videos, images, articles and audio files from top educational publishers, such as TVOntario, National Geographic, PBS, Encyclopaedia Britannica, the History Channel, Nelvana, and more.

In addition to Learn360's rich content, Ontario educators have 24/7 access to a number of new features that allows users to create quizzes and assignments, as well as easily upload and share custom content and podcasts. Learn360 makes these digital assets even more accessible and easy to share in online environments, including virtual classrooms that can be accessed from home. All of Learn360's content and user-created content can be integrated into podcasts, presentations, learning-based activities and quizzes both inside and outside of the classroom.

"This will be a huge benefit for Ontario students and teachers," says Phil Baker, ORION President and CEO.

"Teaching and learning resources are more multi-media based and interactive and schools need the tools and capabilities to derive the full benefits of these new resources. ORION is an important part of advanced education support capabilities, and we welcome all efforts to enhance students' learning experience and give teachers the tools they need to do their job today," said Baker.

In March of this year Learn360 and Ontario's Ministry of Education entered into a multi-year agreement which offers Ontario public schools access to Learn360's online catalogue of educational content. This agreement was the product of a thorough evaluation conducted by the Ontario software Acquisition Program Advisory Committee (OSAPAC) that yielded OSAPAC's recommendation of Learn360 as the provider that met and would continue to meet the expectations of the educational community.

"Our primary mission is to provide best in class educational media, in a user friendly environment for the students and educators of Canada," stated Suzanne Hitchon, VP & General Manager of Learn360. "This relationship will provide for an enhanced experience that will contribute to the creation of a more interactive classroom learning environment."

ORION is peering directly with Limelight Networks, which hosts Learn360 content, enabling a direct data network path for schools that can access the ORION network.

"This peering arrangement allows the traffic to remain on-net over ORION directly to the Learn360 content, alleviating traffic over schools' individual commodity Internet links and representing a potential cost savings of thousands of dollars in bandwidth," says Kim.

Read the release at www.orion.on.ca/recent-releases.html. To learn more about Learn360, visit www.learn360.ca.