The Cloud gives control to people on their documents/work etc, it makes them publishers/authors/broadcasters etc. A spin of sharing and collaborative working added to the mix and we have what I call as the Cloud Learning environment. Here the control is shared between the learner and the facilitator or the academics .
This is new, as the old institutional VLE (or virtual learning environments, kept most of the control with the institutions or the academics) and the PLEs (personal learning environments) did not quite provide a cohesive platform to bring different people together form different walks of life uniformly.
To read more about a CLE, see http://edublend.blogspot.com/2009/12/cloud-learning-environment-what-it-is.html

An Example of that is my Exam revision site that taps into the students informal learning experience/practice. I blogged about it here
http://edublend.blogspot.com/2009/12/examopedia-re-birth-on-google-sites.html
And the resources is an Open access resource that can be accessed here:
http://sites.google.com/a/port.ac.uk/examopedia/

There is also a useful FAQ at https://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139019.

I would perhaps argue that comparing the two solutions based on user’s familiarity with Microsoft Office is flawed. I’d like to think that the goal of this exercise would be to, in some measure, provide your kids with tools that support their education and provide some lasting value.

Given that the office environment they will eventually encounter is unlikely to include anything that resembles MS Office today, “familiarity with Office” seems like an odd choice of criteria.

I would encourage that you and your kids investigate the collaborative aspects of Google, particularly Google Docs and Google Sites. Many schools are also making great use of the “private YouTube” functionality of Google Apps Education Edition.
The collaborative facilities of these tools are unequaled, and probably more likely to help develop relevant skills.

Jan

(disclaimer: we’re a Google partner, and support a number of teachers and educational institutions that use the tools on a daily basis)

This post was mentioned on Twitter by EmergingEdTech: This week’s topic at EmergingEdTech.com, Microsoft’s Live@edu vs Google Apps for Education: http://bit.ly/8G7PJ...

Here’s a video detailing how students can use Office Live Workspace to collaborate on group projects in and out of the classroom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chI7E1F9Q3Y&feature=channel_page

Cheers,
Kate
MSFT Office Live Outreach Team
http://www.facebook.com/officelive