Crosstalk: The Race for Education Tech; Problems With Google+

Start-ups in Control: Knewton’s partnership with Pearson to add its adaptive-learning technology to the publisher’s online courses is a sign of the increasing power of educational-technology start-ups, writes Scott Olster at Fortune. When the market was less promising, Knewton might have been acquired instead, he says.

Google+: Many colleges started setting up institutional pages on Google+ when the fledgling social network chose to allow pages for organizations. Not so fast, argues Seth Odell at Higher Ed Live, who questions the value of using Google+ “as another dumping ground for the same content we currently distribute elsewhere.” And Mike Richwalsky says Facebook will continue to be the first place he thinks of to post content about his institution, John Carroll University.

EDUniverse: The higher-education marketing firm mStoner said it would start a Web site in February, EDUniverse, to serve as a hub for news and discussion related to higher-education communications and marketing.

Drinking at Penn State: As a child-sex-abuse scandal led to the dismissals of the president and the football coach at Pennsylvania State University, journalists and commentators tried to describe what life on the campus is like. Back in 2009, the radio series This American Life investigated one aspect of the university: its drinking culture.

Crosstalk is a weekly feature on Wired Campus that links to some of the best online conversations and ideas about technology in higher education during the past week. Send ideas to josh.keller@chronicle.com.