As a school that currently uses SharePoint (Internally) and Live@Edu I think this will be a big addition for schools and education. I think it will finally give education a product that they can utilize the benefits of social networking in a more secure and controlled environment and keep out all the time wasting aspects that Facebook and other social networks are about. When you are dealing with students that are in some cases minors security and some level of administrative control is a necessity. We block general email and IM for students and most social network sites from even staff.
Currently Live@Edu has given my High School the ability to provide secure email to our students and opened up avenues of communication between students and teachers that were not possible before. In the past we had students email teachers their homework or just some general information and frequently they would forget to tell the teacher who they are. The teacher could not tell who the student was from their private email most of the time because they would use email addresses like JohnnyBravo@yahoo.com or whatever. This made it easy for teachers to email students using their ID numbers and now students can email staff and save files online and access them from anywhere.
I for one am very excited about the SharePoint Online and Office Web Apps enhancements coming to Live Services.
Discussion on:
Message 11 of 1
The best of ZDNet, delivered
ZDNet Newsletters
Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox
