GOOD COMPANY: You know you're on the front edge of a cool trend when interesting people are all around you. Among recent converts to the edtech industry: Laird M. Malamed, formerly the guy in charge of Guitar Hero, is exploring edtech with an eye toward starting a venture in a year. And the rumor on the street is that Craig Silverstein, Google's third employee after Sergey and Larry, is leaving the mothership for Khan Academy.

EDSURGENT GIVES BLOOD! Well, okay, virtual blood. Grockit's brave Farb Nivi will host a chat on Reddit IAmA this morning at 9:00 am PT to talk about test prep, edtech and well, anything. We're betting that Farb can hold his own up against chats with oh, say, three-time convicted felons and fantasy writer, R.A. Salvatore. Sign up here to join the fray.

APPLE MULLIGANS: Apple has revised its EULA for its iBooks Author app to address ambiguities over content ownership and distribution rights, which had quite a few folks clamoring. The new agreement clarifies that Apple will only claim exclusive sales for works output in the .ibooks format, and that the author retains all ownership over content. (We're glad they listened.)

AAAA...KASH: All the hoopla over India's darling $35 tablet may be a little premature. FastCompany reports that the Indian government is attempting to break a stalemate between the Aakash's creators and its manufacturing partner, U.K.-based DataWind. At the heart of the quagmire seem to be disagreements over the Aakash's minimum features, which DataWind has been accused of skimping on. (Here's the saga of two brave souls who traveled eleven hours by train to get their hands on this elusive tablet, only to be severely disappointed by its shoddy construction, poor battery life, and "painfully slow" operation.) It's an "escalating Greek tragedy," according to article author Nidhi Subbaraman.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: In honor of Digital Learning Day, the NY Times compiled snippets of stories from 40 years of edtech reporting. This just in: many issues over the educational value of computers and the Internet are the same ones that people have fretted about for at least four decades.

WHO OWNS YOUR NOTES? CSU and UC campuses are cracking down on note-selling websites and students who use them, reports Tina Barsheghian in MInd/Shift. Students raise questions of intellectual property and free speech; professors worry about quality control and what bad notes might do to their professional reputation.

MIRROR MIRROR: "The education systems in China and the United States not only are headed in opposite directions, but are aiming at exactly what the other system is trying to give up," the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. While the U.S. strives for the standardized, test-driven results that China (and other Asian countries) excel at achieving, China would like to loosen up to allow for the flexibility and creativity associated with the U.S. education system. Article co-author Yong Zhao has written extensively on this subject, and warns us not to give up our innovative capacities for the sake of shallow, quick-fix test scores.

A MEETUP OF YOUR OWN: Former teacher-turned-entrepreneur, Meredith Ely of LearnBoost, has been a driving spirit behind the marvelous San Francisco edtech meetups, which have drawn crowds of more than 150. Now she's helping the meetups grow. Even if you already signed up, reregister here for the "New! Improved!" SF EdTech Meetup. Even better: Meredith hopes to share with edtechers in other cities a playbook on how to organize edtech meetups and possibly a bit of support to get things rolling. Contact her here.

HELP WANTED: Codecademy has added a new feature, Course Creator, which allows anyone to create programming courses in JavaScript, Python and Ruby. The opening of floodgates raises questions over quality control but addresses concerns over the limited number of exercises currently on the site. (There are only six employees, folks.) No plans to pay contributors but Codecademy hopes that a reputation and exposure system will be sufficient incentive. Hat tip to TechCrunch.

SUMMER OF LOVE: If you love coding, that is. Last week Google announced the start of Google Summer of Code 2012, the eighth year of a program that offers stipends to programming students around the world so they will write code for open source projects. Accepted student applicants are paired with mentors from participating projects, so they get a feel for how real-world coding environments work. Interested folks should check out the timeline here.

PEER PIONEERS: Rice University has adopted five open-source textbooks from OpenStax College, a non-profit textbook publisher with a who's who list of foundation support. Inside Higher Ed reports that organizers are projecting student savings of "$90 million in the next five years if the books capture 10 percent of the national market." The OER publisher aims to set a new standard through an extensive peer-review process. There's even a nifty savings calculator.

Student Achievement Partners: The GE Foundation announced a $18 million grant to NYC-based Student Achievement Partners, a nonprofit that supports the implementation of Common Core State Standards across the U.S. This four-year grant is the largest corporate commitment to Common Core State Standards, says MarketWatch. Along with helping teachers understand and adapt to new standards, the grant money will be used to build a website repository of Common Core-aligned resources for teachers.

TeachStreet: Seattle, WA-based TeachStreet has been "acqhired" by Amazon and will join the AmazonLocal team, a daily deal service that operates in more than 40 cities across the U.S. This concludes TeachStreet founder Dave Schappell's 12-month odyssey of entertaining offers for his 5-year old marketplace serving teachers and students, reports Geekwire.

Acceptly: $500K in seed funding to Los Angeles, CA-based Acceptly in a round led by Learn Capital, along with several noteworthy angel investors: Meyer "Micky" Malka, Ossama Hassanein, Ayaz ul Haque, and Roham Gharegozlou. Acceptly is an online college admissions prep service that helps students prepare their college applications.

Peer2Peer: Undisclosed price for the acquisition of east coast-based tutoring service, Peer2Peer, by Manhattan-based Aristotle Circle. Fascinating story here: Peer2Peer, started by then 17-year old Eric Kimel with $50 he had saved from serving pizzas, connects students who need help with other students in their area, using a local (human) coordinator, M.O.M. (management operational mentor). Tutors earn at least the minimum wage; 60% of those tutored improve at least a letter grade in a semester. Eric went to college and kept running Peer2Peer; it has since provided 100,000 tutoring sessions to 5,000 kids in 10 locations. Merging with Aristotle Circle, which got its start as a consultancy that helps kids get into elite schools, might seem like an "opposites attract" story, Eric concedes. Now at the ripe age of 25, Eric is Aristotle's chief strategist and excited about how the two groups will leverage one another's strengths. More from the Wall Street Journal.

THE ACTIVIST ECONOMIST: Roland Fryer, MacArthur "genius," Harvard economist, head of the four-year old Education Innovation Laboratory (or Ed Labs), is a man with a plan: he wants to climb into the "black box" of school operations and measure what strategies will close the achievement gap. A recent paper recounts how his team tested five ideas in the Houston school district. The League of Innovative Schools, a network of schools and superintendents, may be ready to help. Details in EdSurge's report for Fast Company. (It goes live at 8:00 am ET). Why edsurgents should care: Fryer is all about the facts and data of what works.

LMS DISTRESS: Existing student information systems and learning management systems aren't working for K-12 teachers, principals and adminstrators, according to a report by Gartner, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Most teachers aren't using the systems in ways that improve teaching and learning; teachers say the training they're receiving on how to use these systems is poor. A report rich with teachers' POV here.

ALL ABOUT OER: How schools could--and should--use Open Education Resources is an important question: California lawmakers (and their counterparts in other states) are considering legislation that would create a digital library of free college textbooks. Integral to that question is the issue of what material should be made openly available. Here's a report by the Center for American Progress on how educators can make use of OER materials. The Center also has a call to action: urging legislators to adopt a public policy that declares: "All publicly funded resources are openly licensed resources."

BRIDGE BURNER: "Khan Academy may be one of the most dangerous phenomena in education today," declares Mathalicious' blog. A couple points of contention: Khan's pedagogy is identical to the same old, boring teaching style that emphasizes procedures rather than conceptual understanding, along with the fact that they've used patron Bill Gates' money to hire a dedicated team of computer scientist with zero teaching experience. argues Mathalicious. Lots--and we mean lots--of fighting words here, especially for those convinced that Khan is driving the future of education innovation. Mathalicious makes richly integrated math videos and curricula; convincing people to pay has been a bear. Khan's price (or lack thereof) "...makes it difficult for something better to come along," contends Mathalicious' Karim Ani. Follow the saga on Hacker News.

BLASPHEMY! Check out Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik's lengthy invective in the LATimes questioning the commercial motives behind the edtech push. He conjures up a lineup of "experts" to cast serious doubt on the value of tech tools. This formula sounds familiar but he cranked it up by calling last week's Digital Learning Day a "dog-and-pony show" "erected upon a sizable foundation of commercially processed claptrap." Yikes. Then again, seems like a lot of things make him grumpy.

BIG WHOOP? Education Secretary Arne Duncan and FCC chairman Julius Genachowski want every student to have an e-textbook by 2017. (Taking a cue from South Korea?) To start, they've released a 67-page "playbook" to ease schools' (presumably painful) transition to ebooks. Audrey Watter's response: "ugh." To be more specific, she isn't swayed by pro-digital textbooks arguments built around "the lighter weight" and interactive claims. This argument is moot, however, asserts NPR's Monkey See blog, which would prefer if everyone just shut up and so refrained from making black-and-white, either/or propositions about the future of books.

SLAM DUNK? Pearson-incubated startup Alleyoop launched last week, with a mission to promote college preparation and career readiness for middle and high school students. It's got all the sweet ingredients: an "adaptive" learning platform, heavy doses of gamification elements, and live tutors. Here's how it works: Alleyoop pulls content from partner vendors and websites to create a learning path for each student. The system tracks user interaction with these materials to develop a "DNA" profile that can predict the type of content (games, videos, readings, etc.) that the student enjoys most. Completing exercises allow students to earn virtual currency ("Yoops"--which can also be purchased) to access premium content and live tutoring, leading some folks to bring up Zynga comparisons. (Sites providing the paid services share revenue with Alleyoop.) The service currently only covers math, but plans to expand to other subjects. More details from TechCrunch. We'll see if this services pleases crowds like real alleyoops do.

CLASSROOM SALON: The "Sound of Silence" may be a pretty dreary song but it's even drearier when silence rules during class "discussion" time. (We've all taken seminars before.) At Carnegie Mellon, a team of educators in the English and compsci departments came up with Classroom Salon, an online platform that allows students and teachers to collaboratively discuss, critique, and markup class reading materials. Instructors get to see class participation analytics in a dashboard. The benefits? Online participation, done in the comfort and privacy of students' own time, often whets their appetites for actual in-class participation. (Better for the less-vocal, shyer folks as well.) Here's a video of teachers who have used Classroom Salon in middle school and graduate level courses. The salon has been piloted with McGraw-Hill and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (funded by a Gates Foundation Next Generation Learning Grant)> Now its developers have opened up the beta and would love to get some feedback. Register at the website with the code "cmu" (no quotes) to try it out.

GOODSEMESTER: Just this week, GoodSemester opened up its beta launch of a site that aspires to be bigger than an LMS--a social platform for sharing class notes, hosting discussions and (for teachers) managing grades. This two-year startup will be interesting to watch. Founder/CEO Jason Rappaport funded the company by using his fourth-year tuition dollars (he graduated from Lehigh University in three). (In his other life, Jason is webmaster and owner of the Legend of Zelda fansite, Zelda Universe; he coaxed many Zelda fans into helping build GoodSemester). Very nifty grading features (you can change your class average by literally dragging the curve.) It comes with a monthly subscription plan ($5/students, $25/prof). No venture money at work here!

DEADLINE ROLLING: Looking to spread the word about the latest edtech ideas charging your startup? If you are in the SF Bay Area, the folks at pariSoma are looking for edtech startups to pitch wares at the next mixer event on February 23. There's room for 15 demo'ers...but it looks like six spots are already taken. Apply here!

DEADLINE FEB 22: The Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the research arm of the Department of Education, is accepting proposals for its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program for edtech innovations. Up for grabs are $150K for Phase I proposals; those accepted will be eligible for Phase II, offering up to $900K for further intensive R&D and realization of market potentials. Folks developing for special-ed needs are also encouraged to apply for the same amount, or may consider trying for the Fast-Track program that awards up to a whopping $1.05 million. More details here.

DEADLINE MARCH 12: The second annual National STEM Video Game Challenge wants to see all your wacky game ideas. Participants must belong to one of the following categories: middle-school, high-school, collegiate, and educators. New sub-categories this year include the PBS KIDS stream, for math-based games aimed at pre-K to fourth grade, and the Sesame Street stream (open to college and educators only), for games inspired by Sesame Street's curriculum and footage. Prizes vary from personal laptops to $40K. Check out the previous winners here.

DEADLINE APRIL 1: Here's one for the kids. The 2012 Google Science Fair is now accepting entries from students aged 13-18 to carry out a scientific investigation into a real-world problem or issue that interests them. Students, either individually or in teams of up to three, pose a question, develop a hypothesis, and conduct experiments to test it. The entire submission process is online (and can be done in 13 different languages). 90 regional finalists (30 each from the Americas, Asia/Pacific, and Europe/Middle East/Africa regions) will be recognized; the top 15 get flown out to the Google HQ for the finals. Swanky prizes await, including scholarships and a trip to the Galapagos. Details here.

HireEducation, which specializes in finding great edtech candidates, is sponsoring EdSurge's job section through June. Free posts for you; great info for all. It's first come, first printed. Write your own ad (but spare us the over-the-top claims, please!) Keep it under 500 characters. Send your job ads here.

HireEducation: Hunting for the next VP of Corporate Development for a highly entrepreneurial, teacher-focused school reform company. The perfect candidate will get to help change the world and live in New York City! Email Mark Philips.

KIPP: Lead the movement for better public schools. Apply to become the next Chief Academic Officer for KIPP Bay Area Schools. We're looking for a committed, passionate person with strong management skills who has demonstrated success leading a high-performing school closing the achievement gap. Learn more here.

GROCKIT: Grockit is a social learning company based in San Francisco. Our mission is to disrupt ineffective education systems and improve the process of learning new things. Product is paramount here. We're maniacally focused on delivering a jaw dropping experience with undeniable value for our users. We're looking for Sr. Software Engineers (Sr. Ruby/JavaScript Developers), Data Scientists/Data Engineers, and UX Designers. See our open positions here.

TOP HAT MONOCLE: Top Hat Monocle may be a goofy name, but we're serious about active learning. You know those clickers some professors use for attendance & quizzes in class? Well, we're nothing like that. We designed a web-based clicker tool that profs can use to measurably increase student comprehension and engagement. Are you as excited about changing education as we are? We're looking for brilliant Developers and superstar Outside Sales Reps to help bring the classroom into this century. If you're ready to help make active learning the norm in higher education, we want to hear from you! Join us.

PEARSON: In September 2011, Pearson announced its API platform, Plug & Play, allowing developers access to some of the company's award-winning content. Pearson is now seeking two Developer Relations Managers, one in San Francisco and one in Manhattan. The individuals will represent Plug & Play at developer events, such as hackathons and meet-ups. The right candidates will be passionate about working with developers, attending developer-focused events, and unlocking the potential of APIs. Either apply via LinkedIn or contact Diana Stepner.

RAISE A TREE: Raise A Tree is recruiting freelance BizDev execs across the USA & Canada. Raise A Tree is a fun, e-learning game for K-12 schools that teaches children about the environment, trees and climate change in an engaging & interactive way. Pupils plant their own virtual trees, nurture them & answer activities to grow them. Join us! Read about us in Tech.li, Gradpreneur, our blog, & apply on Enternships. We also need a kick ass community manager. Email Dominic Tarn.

SIIA: The Software & Information Industry Association is looking for an Education Market and Policy Analyst to support high-tech publishers and developers in its education division. The person will conduct research and analysis and play a pivotal role in helping better inform SIIA member companies about the K-20 market, funding and regulatory landscape, opportunities for technology and digital learning, and enhancing SIIA's state and national advocacy work. More info here. Based in Washington DC. Contact [email protected].

2TOR: Looking for a Director of Analytics, a data-driven, player/coach role responsible for guiding 2tor's use of data and analytics to enable better insights and forecasting, allowing us to profitably scale our business. Responsibilities include: managing a team of analysts to support marketing and admissions; applying advanced analysis techniques to ID drivers & trends and build predictive models; developing reporting to support all areas of the business; and fostering a data driven culture of A/B testing & rapid experimentation across 2tor. More info here.

We're going to be out and about alot in the coming weeks. How about you? Let us know!