Photo Credit: WonderlaneBy Matt PicklesWhen considering the effects of the debt crisis on Greece, most people probably think of long queues outside banks and protests in the streets.A less visible but perhaps further reaching outcome is that Greece’s education system has become one of the most unequal in the developed world.Read the rest of the story at BBC.com.

Frank Gallagher, VP of Education at Cable Impacts Foundation, talks with Dr. Berger about his experience in education and best practices for integrating solutions into schools and communities.Led by Cable Impacts Foundation: How do you make a school “future ready?” What combination of infrastructure and devices, pedagogy and professional development, curriculum and content, leadership and culture will enable schools to effectively prepare today’s students for tomorrow’s challenges in college, career or civic life?

Join in on Connected Educator Month this October..Getting StartedFive Ways to ConnectDo-It-Yourself Professional DevelopmentMore Resources From EdutopiaAdditional Resources on the WebConnected Educator Month (CEM) is a celebration of online communities of practice originally developed by the U.S. Department of Education with partners. As with previous years, October 2015 includes an array of rich opportunities for informal professional development, both for educators with established professional learning networks (PLNs) and for those just getting started. Whether you participate formally in the month or not, consider using some of the resources below to engage in do-it-yourself professional development all year long.Getting StartedVisit CEM: Getting Started and consider downloading the Connected Educator Starter Kit by Powerful Learning Practice, a guide with 31 days of online activities — including relevant tips, tutorials, and ideas — that will help you along your professional-learning journey, no matter where you’re starting from. As you build your PLN, make sure to click …

WebbAlign, the widely accepted and highly valued approach to evaluating alignment of standards and assessments, announces a new partnership program to help K-12 educational publishers validate the rigor of their curriculum and assessments. The WebbAlign Depth of Knowledge (DOK) Partner Program is available for publishers committed to implementing the framework through an ongoing process guided by Dr. Norman Webb and his team.

News Corp said it sold its digital education brand, Amplify, to a management team supported by a group of private investors following slowing growth in the digital curriculum market.The company did not disclose financial terms of the deal.

In a high-profile speech Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan urged states to shift a healthy share of local and state correctional spending on nonviolent offenders to teachers—especially to raise teachers’ salaries at high-poverty schools and help stop the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

Mike Lawrence, CEO of CUE, talks with Dr. Berger about professional development and the role CUE plays in advancing technology and learning. Lawrence discusses CUE’s role with Connected Educator Month including the CEM Cafe and Twitter chats that will be happening all month!IntervieweeMike Lawrence has been impacting education as a teacher, administrator, technology coordinator and non-profit leader for twenty years. He is a respected presenter, at national conferences and events and was named an Apple Distinguished Educator in 2003. He assisted in the development and launch of the Discovery Educator Network (DEN) and co-founded the Google Certified Teacher program.  He currently serves as CEO of CUE (CUE.org). Each year, thousands of educators attend CUE’s conference events and professional learning opportunities, making it the premier Educational Technology association.Interviewer featured on the edCircuit,  in EdTech Review India, Scholastic’s District Administrator and on RFD TV’s Rural Education Special. As an industry personality Dr. Berger …

 Blue Sky Alternative Investments — Wednesday, September 30, 2015Math Curriculum Provider Receives Major Investment To Boost Presence in U.S. MarketSt. Charles, MO. (Sept. 30, 2015) – Blue Sky Alternative Investments (ASX:BLA) has stamped the education-technology sector as one to watch after securing a multi-million dollar stake in ORIGO Education through its private equity division.“ORIGO Education is leading the market in innovative learning,” stated Lachlan McMurdo, investment director for Blue Sky Private Equity. “The key competitive advantage lies in the high quality of their resources, written by an expert team of authors. Educators worldwide seek out ORIGO’s founders because of the impressive intellectual property they have developed over the years.”The capital investment will enable the company to increase research and development across its existing suite of products. ORIGO creates resources that empower teachers, engage students, and promote a deep level of mathematical understanding. Its elementary mathematics solutions are tailored to local …

News Corp announced today that it has sold its Amplify Insight and Learning businesses to a management team supported by a group of private investors. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. As a result of the sale, beginning in First Quarter of Fiscal 2016, News Corp will reflect the results of its Digital Education segment as discontinued operations. “We are extremely proud of the crucial work that the Amplify team has done to create a digital platform for the future. It is tragic that so many children are digitally literate but functionally illiterate, and it has been the cherished vision of all at Amplify to ensure that students, regardless of their background, have access to a contemporary curriculum delivered on a contemporary platform,” said Robert Thomson, Chief Executive of News Corp. “There is no doubt that the foundations laid by the creative team at Amplify will be profoundly …

As millions of American children head back to school over the next few weeks, they’re preparing for lessons in reading, writing, and math.  But there’s one crucial subject that too many of today’s high schools students are missing out on: Financial literacy.

New Online Destination To Discover, Share and Sell Digital Learning Tools and Teacher-Created Content; HMH Marketplace Will Connect Edtech Start-Ups and Educators; ‘Curious Classroom’ Contest Invites Teachers To Showcase Original Creations

Photo credit: U.S. Dept. of Education

Ron Turiello’s daughter, Grace, seemed unusually alert even as a newborn.At 7 months or so, she showed an interest in categorizing objects: She’d take a drawing of an elephant in a picture book, say, and match it to a stuffed elephant and a realistic plastic elephant.At 5 or 6 years old, when snorkeling with her family in Hawaii, she identified a passing fish correctly as a Heller’s barracuda, then added, “Where are the rest? They usually travel in schools.

In this edCircuit conversation, author and educator David Greene shares candid insights on the state of teaching today—examining policy and politics.

World leaders and education activists met at the United Nations today for a high-level event to mark the inclusion of education as a transformative stand-alone goal in the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.