Toca Boca CEO Bjorn Jeffery: Adults Don’t Understand How Kids Play

Well, most of them, anyway.

News Byte

Fingerprint Plans Edutainment Network for Samsung Devices

San Francisco-based kids’-app startup Fingerprint today announced a partnership with Samsung to launch a mobile app network for children in Southeast Asia in Q1 2014. The project would give the mobile app developers that work with Fingerprint a more direct line to families using compatible Samsung devices, CEO Nancy MacIntyre said. Fingerprint has previously rolled out similar app-network partnerships, but Samsung’s collaboration will add more parental control and progress-tracking features.

Boosting STEM Education, Facebook Starts Christmas Early With Laptops for Schools

The social giant doles out hardware to Bay Area schools in need of tech help.

More Moolah for MOOCs: Coursera Raises Another $20M

Three of Coursera’s university partners (which ones, it’s not saying) invested in the latest round.

News Byte

Co.Lab Classmate Kidaptive Raises $10 Million Series B

Kidaptive, an education-gaming startup and one of the first five companies to go through the Zynga-New Schools accelerator Co.Lab, announced today that it has raised a $10.1 million Series B. Formation 8 led the round, backed up by Menlo Ventures and Stanford University’s StartX accelerator. Kidaptive’s first app, Leo’s Pad, uses interactive stories to test kids’ educational development, giving parents data about that growth to help keep them on track. The new funding will finance 25 animated episodes for Leo’s Pad.

Justin Kitch Talks About His New Learning Platform, Curious (Video)

Are you curious about Curious?

Voices

First-of-Its-Kind Online Master’s Draws Wave of Applicants

In the past three weeks, Georgia Tech received nearly twice as many applications for a new low-cost online master’s program as its comparable residential program receives in a year, suggesting a growing demand for online learning.

EA Founder Trip Hawkins Teases New Education Startup, Predicts Intense Disruption in Living Room

And Apple isn’t even one of his Top 5 candidates to win that disruption.

AllThingsD Week in Review: BlackBerry Is Just Resting, and YouTube Goes Mobile First

The Top 10 stories that powered AllThingsD this week, in one convenient post.

News Byte

Amazon Will Acquire EdTech Startup TenMarks to Create Educational Apps for Kindles

Amazon said on Thursday that it had reached an agreement to purchase TenMarks, a four-year-old education startup that makes online educational tools focused on mathematics. “Together, Amazon and TenMarks intend to develop rich educational content and applications, across multiple platforms, that we think teachers, parents and students will love,” Amazon Kindle VP Dave Limp said in a statement. Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter, were not disclosed.