Public sector

K–12 institutions choose Live@edu

1 July 2008

At the National Educational Computing Conference in San Antonio, Texas Microsoft demonstrated the increasing momentum of the Microsoft Live@edu programme.

Microsoft Live@edu is a suite of no-cost, innovative online communication tools. Since its launch in March 2005, thousands of universities, colleges and K–12 schools in 86 countries have enrolled in the programme.

“As K–12 districts seek to reconcile their vision of providing effective and sophisticated communications for their education communities with the reality of increased storage and mail service costs, they find compelling collaboration solutions with Live@edu,” said Anthony Salcito, general manager of Microsoft Education. “Microsoft’s holistic approach to education allows us to work with district customers to select the right tools and solutions. Live@edu helps them meet their individual collaboration and communication goals, whether they wish to simplify e-mail or build richer work-space and online learning and sharing options.”

Live@edu allows teachers and students to access documents from almost any computer with an Internet connection, collaborate with others on documents and projects in a password-protected work space, store large numbers of documents, photos and multimedia materials, and connect to Microsoft Office applications via the Web.

“In Polk County, Florida, our goal is to enhance communication among the school system, parents and community to increase student achievement,” said Abdu Taguri, chief information officer of Polk County Schools. “That’s why our work with Live@edu will help us to eventually roll out e-mail accounts to every student and parent.”

More information on the programme can be found at the Microsoft Live@edu dedicated site.