One of the most exciting developments I think of Microsoft Office 2010, are the Office Web Apps. These are available now if you have a Windows Live ID. We will be looking at how you can use these web apps in the classroom in the next few months. But I wanted to share this post from the UK Schools blog, which describes how you might access Office Web Apps in school.
Firstly, these apps are examples of cloud based services, with lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote available through your internet browser. This means that you can start editing a document in Office 2010 on your laptop or desktop computer, and then view, edit and share the document using the web version. So it means that your students can create and edit Office documents at home, without needing the full version of Office on their computers. And it works with a broad range of web-browsers, so they don't even need to be running a Windows computer.
There are three ways to get Office Web Apps :-
If you have a Windows Live ID, then you will have a skydrive, a 25GB web storage area. (You can also use it to sign up to the Partners in Learning Network). Here you can create and save documents for your own use, or share them with specific other people, or save files that you want anybody to access.
There are step-by-step instructions to getting started with Office Web Apps in WIndows Live here.
In many ways, this option is similar to the Windows Live , in that your students and staff will have a Windows Live login to get to their free email inbox, SkyDrive and Office Web Apps. However, it fits more effectively into your school IT infrastructure, as you manage all of your Live@edu user accounts This means that when you add new student on your server, it automatically creates their email account (on your own .sch.uk domain) and their account that can be used for SkyDrive, Office Web Apps etc. Have look at the Live@edu blog, for further details about Live@edu
The new version of SharePoint released this summer, now includes Office Web Apps as part of the package. Which means that your students and staff can access documents directly in the browser on your SharePoint site. This is particularly useful if you want to upload a learning activity onto your learning platform, and then ask students to work on it collaboratively - they can edit it at the same time, and the SharePoint version of Office Web Apps will manage all of the changes simultaneously. For a summary of Office Web Apps in SharePoint, take a look at this article.
You can read a more detailed overview of the Office Web Apps on the Office website.