Google Apps (education edition) is free for schools. It allows students and teachers to create documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), share calendars, chat and more for free on-line. It is an excellent tool to provide elearning.
"Frantic troubleshooting by an overworked staff versus someone else fixing problems smoothly. A sliver of server space per person versus a five-gigabyte chunk. Half a million dollars versus free. That's what colleges are faced with as they decide whether to continue running their own e-mail services or outsource them to a professional service like Google Apps Education Edition" Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/11/2008
It is available for free to educational institutions. Go to connectingeducation.com for more information.
Video of students describing how they use Google Apps (education edition): http://www.fliqz.com/public/aspx/playerdefault.aspx?vid=6542ebd5acdb69b732cf5db20cf48606