I've been attending the OSCON conference this week up in Portland, and as such have really neglected my own blogs.

So in an attempt to dig my way out of a mess of untold stories, here are a few important ed-tech news items from the week:

Borders announced a Textbook Marketplace for students to buy and sell new and used textbooks. Although the site offers over a million titles at a discount of up to 90%, it remains to be seen if the buy-and-sell market is really the future of textbooks. Startups like BookRenter and Chegg offer textbook rental, which seems like a really viable alternative than purchasing an expensive textbook that may or may not resell.

PBS TeacherLine announced this week that it is adopting the open source LMS . Citing the Obama Administration's push for open source and Open Educational Resources, Melinda George, the senior director of PBS TeacherLine says that, Open technologies are well aligned with the movement toward collaborative digital learning environments. We decided to use Moodle to better serve schools and districts today and into the future as the educational system evolves. Now schools can enjoy greater flexibility in adapting and using our high-quality professional development content to meet their local needs.

Education assessment software startup SynapticMash was acquired by Promethean this week.

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced plans for a National Learning Registry in a speech this week. The registry will help organize digital educational resources for teachers and students.