News and Blog

Building ECNO’s new strategic plan: A conversation with Wayne Toms, Executive Director, and Brian McKay, President, Board of Directors What was the process of developing the new strategic plan? WT: We started in March 2022 with a day-long discussion with the Joint Committee (Board and ECNO Advisory Committee). This was…

Sharp-eyed members will notice a few changes to the ECNO logo of late. In December, we updated our brand to best position the organization to tackle the goals of the new strategic plan, which will be launched to members in January 2023. The strategic plan sets a bold path forward,…

In the early days of the pandemic, as school boards adapted to virtual learning, a team of IT, Privacy and Supply Chain Management experts from across the province was working night and day to ethically hack dozens of online applications. The objective is twofold; to safeguard student personal privacy information…

When Gina Coish started working in education, online privacy was not on the radar. In the 30 years before her official ‘retirement’ this year (more on that later) it became the defining focus of her career. “I worked in practically every department,” Gina says of her early years with the…

ECNO is proud to have led a successful K-12 Cyber Awareness Month campaign (October 1st-31st, 2021) in partnership with the Ontario Ministry of Education. For the second year in a row, ECNO was able to educate faculty, students, and their families of the importance of staying safe online. With the…

A solution to enable virtual learning during the pandemic has become a permanent step away from desktop computers and into cloud computing at one Ontario school board, with other boards likely to follow suit given the equity, convenience and potential savings realized. Using sophisticated software programs such as AutoCAD and…

For most people who work in K-12, summer brings a sense of relaxation and relief from the day-to-day stresses that we have seen over the past 10 months particularly during this extraordinary COVID-19 school year. Although we can let our hair down on some things, cyber security is something that…

As the October approaches, ECNO and the ministry of education have been preparing for Cyber Security Month. Part of our work leading up to the month has been aligning boards for best practices and providing resources on ECNO.org. A resource we wanted to share for you and your peers was…

Device Re-emergence As our teachers, staff and students return to our schools and offices the thing that should be first and foremost on our minds is their health and safety. For IT teams the second concern should be what have the devices they are bringing back into our buildings and…