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I recently had the chance to see a demo of Microsoft’s Live Exchange service, which offers 10 gig of email for students as well as 25 gig in a “Skydrive.” It was great stuff to check-out…in fact, it reminded me of GoogleApps like Gmail and Docs. While the following might vary for your organization, here are some quick facts:

• Approx $1700 for 8000 staff
• 300 courses, includes Word to Server Configuration
• LiveID setup using district email accounts
• Exchange – essentially a hosted exchange
• Enable accounts for students, parents…using district domain name. Manage their domain.
• Accepts upload of Comma delimited file of usernames
• Manage what they’re doing
• 10 gig mailbox with another 25gig
• ePortfolio with SkyDrive
• Messaging for life with Exchange Labs
• e-Portfolio with SkyDrive
• Collaboration with Office Live Workspaces
• Built-in spam and virus filtering
• Email content is not scanned, privacy is a top concern
• Encrypted end to end

As soon as I realized that, it occurred to me that the big players (e.g. Microsoft, Google) are aligning with different partners–it’s all about collaboration these days–to enhance their offerings. Then, I ran across this blog post by Ian–entitled is Google the ‘Killer App’ for Moodle–that put it all into perspective, especially this paragraph:

Loads of talk about the changes taking place with Google Education and Moodle. For non-Moodle users this raises the point of if Google Apps for Education and Moodle are now a better offer than the Blackboard/MS Office combo many use. Questionable if Blackboard will respond to this in the light of recent (impressive) financial figures, but as mentioned elsewhere this could be a way of improving the Content System.

It’s funny to watch who will align with whom. One of the other presentations I saw was the IT Academy, another Microsoft offering.

The Microsoft IT Academy Online Learning Program is a powerful Web-based resource for both students and instructors that complements and extends classroom instruction. Students are able to extend classroom instruction with online courseware, reference materials, group collaboration and mentoring. Instructors will also benefit from using online training.

It costs money (to get certified in a course available via IT Academy, participants would have to pay a discounted rate per test) but is incredibly inexpensive for school districts as a resource…the cost arises only if certification is the desired route, which it may very well be for Career and Technology students. I still need to explore it to do a proper review.

To balance that Microsoft resource offering, there is a whole series of Online Courses available from INGOTS that can be setup for use in a Moodle without problem.

INGOTs are International Grades in Open Technologies. They provide a motivating progression route from complete beginner to professional level expertise in commonly used productivity tools found in the modern workplace such as word processing, presenting and searching for information.

You are actually free to download these Moodle courses, revise them, upload, etc. You can become an INGOT assessor so that you can certify folks.

Regardless of which path you want to follow–the dark side or otherwise –there are choices available.

In the long run, which choice will foster freedom and open access to learning?

Update: Joe Bires (EdTechLeadership) suggests a different ending. He tweets:

isn’t it about what will work best for students and teachers right now, rather than what will will foster freedom and open access.

How will free software and open access work better for students and teachers in the long run?

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure