As you point out, it’s a tradeoff. Many (most?) of the people in a position to make a real difference with some of these tools (aka teachers) aren’t in a position to set up and maintain their own servers. They’re also probably not going to be able to get someone else to set it up for them, if they’re working in a school district with an understaffed and overworked tech department. So free beer may be their only option.

I think your point about caution is a good one. We frequently get very excited about the things an online tool can do, without spending as much time on the restrictions, conditions, and other drawbacks. At the very least, we need to encourage people to be aware of what can happen.

Several years ago, I encouraged a school full of teachers to use a free online gradebook (I know, looking back, it was a BAD idea). But it gave them an easy way to keep track of their grades, and had a lot of cool features for keeping students and their parents informed of their current status. We spent much of the fall promoting it, only to find that the next spring it became a pay-service. You can keep using it, for a small monthly fee. Of course the school couldn’t afford this, and we quickly abandoned it, much to the annoyance of the staff and parents.

With similar uncertaintly coming from Eduspaces, I’m glad that I’ve taken the free speech approach now. But it does mean I’m slower to embrace and deploy new technologies.

Thanks for bringing up the conversation.