If anything – watch their interactive website which includes animated films designed by students. Link is embedded or find here: http://my.liveatedu.com/

Here is what Microsoft says they will provide FOR EACH USER:
25GB of space on SkyDrive (their own individual home folder)
5GB of space in email
Ability to send 20MB per message
Instant messenger (which can be open for staff and not students)
Microsoft Sharepoint services – collaborative documents shared online
A website that includes blogging, calendars, document sharing, etc.
Microsoft Office Live access (Word, Power Point, Excel) online (no installers)
Microsoft Live Search

In other words, a teacher could upload their files to this system and then open rights up to students to view/edit. Teacher and administrators could create folders to share documents and files. The shared folders on our file server migrate up to this system and then we assign rights to the specific folders.

Microsoft Office Live is the web version of Office – Word, Power Point, Excel. Students and staff would have WEB access to these tools without having to install on their own computers.

Total cost for this: $0.00 for hosting. No advertisements on ANY student access service but staff may have Microsoft advertisements (only in top banner of screen). The advertisements aren’t commercials but a banner about a particular Microsoft service.

Positives:
Hosted off-site (no need for a second NOC….or a first NOC for that matter).
Free – and that is free forever (no fee later)
Web access means all materials are online all the time. No second upload for teachers wanting to post documents on their websites. They simply assign rights to their documents in their folders to who they want to view or edit the docs.
Microsoft availability online means kids and staff access Microsoft Office on any computer with Internet connectivity. Same version for everyone.
Built-in Spam and Virus scanner
Leave-ability: Graduates from district take email and info with them. Account goes from district address to @hotmail.com if they want it. All documents and files go with them and out of our control and management
Lots of space gives 30GB of space per user but may be up to 50GB once we get into the Office/Web apps
Private and secure
Collaborative work environments online
Instant Chat
Student websites – Students could make portfolios for classes and be able to share them with future employers/colleges.
Teacher websites – Teachers can generate websites with blogging, calendars, documents, document sharing, etc.
Syncs with our current Active Directory and setup (all current and archived emails with Folders migrate over)
Mobile phone access is built-in via the web
Low maintenance
Low migration issues
Offers ShareView which includes ability to link 15 users for screencasting

Negatives:
Hosted off-site so if the site is down or Internet is down, we are down.
Advertising on some areas (but it is for Microsoft products only)
25GB of space gives freedom to put music, games, etc. in the system. It will be hard to monitor it but we will look into that and how our network access control can help.
Microsoft – most viruses and hacks are targeted at them but in this day and age, we are all targets
Some migration issues. I think if we are to do this, we pay for the advanced migration tools and maybe hire an engineer to come help us migrate it all over. This could be our only cost.

My district uses Active Directory and Microsoft for everything so the migration will be simplified. The presenter in the webinar shared how universities migrate over 30,000 users in a week. We have 710 staff and have not opened up student accounts beyond the high school.

All this said, does the cloud beat the wheel? Do we migrate completely online? This changes cost dramatically but then the money for our own hosting goes to bandwidth. We open the pipeline!

I want to know from others out there who are experiencing this what their thoughts are. Districts, universities, businesses going Web 2.0 cloud – what do you think? Is it worth $0.00 for this??

The first site is called MagCloud and it is a site for people who want to get into publishing magazines without having to purchase their own print areas. You can upload your magazine while they print and distribute it for you. Is this where printable magazines are headed? Regardless of the Web 2.0 interaction and the decline of print material, couldn’t cost be saved by using Mag Cloud for printing resources for a limited readership? And if you are a blogger who wanted to publish a yearly summary of the blog, what better way than with MagCloud?

The second site is called I’m from Driftwood and it is a blog/social network for gay teens to post their own “Coming Out” stories from the small towns they belong. It is more than just a perspective on gay teenagers; it is a perspective of small town life and acceptance. Very interesting and true stories with great perspectives from the group gathering and posting on this site. Posts include a Google pic taken from the satellite perspective of the small town in which they belong.

What is really interesting about the author of this site is that he helped push the nation’s number one dating site E-Harmony to include gay coupling as part of its site.

With so much “change” in our country, it is great to see more than just the propaganda from both sides of this issue. It is inspiring to read the stories of the citizens in the small towns. I really suggest you check out the site. As a teacher, it would be interesting to develop a similar discussion on a perspective on any issue and share what it is like to live in a smaller town and how that issue affects the citizens in that town. Go back to slavery, to voting rights, to women’s rights, to prohibition, etc. and write from the perspective of your own town on how these rights and the STRUGGLE itself affect you or someone in the town..

I shared with them my vision for migrating resources to the web and the justification for why. I explained the differences of office tools, operating systems, and the push for online assessments. I also shared various resources found in social bookmarking and sharing collaborative spaces in Google documents. I kept my eyes on them to make sure I wasn’t going overboard or extending beyond what they were understanding; but they were all on board. I went for 90 minutes and even answered questions.

I left that group today with some great responses! They want to learn more and that is the best response!

They also would like to get more youthful representation in the HCCC. I may get together with my computer teachers at the middle through high school to see if there is some shared interest.

And they would like to help with a project I have in mind to get older computers out to the community. We have a huge recycling problem in this world when it comes to our computers. Instead of thrusting them out to third world dumping grounds, we could strip them down and put Ubuntu on them for Internet access in our community. The HCCC is interested in helping with this project and I welcome their help!

Anyway, it was a great time today to share with another group in this great community. I feel so blessed to be able to go out and share within our community about our ideas and to hear feedback on what we can do to improve our vision. I don’t know of many technology directors who are so willing to go out and connect to their community resources! I wish more of my colleagues would do this. Step out of your offices and into the community that may or may not be your “target” audience. Share. Collaborate. Learn.

And HCCC – I already have some ideas for your new website! Let’s keep talking!