The world of schooling and writing deadlines has gotten in the way of regular updates.

The NCTE conference in Chicago was a busy one for me. In addition to presentations I also:

• waited in line at Frontera
• caught up with friends
• met Nicholas Sparks 
• went on an architectural boat tour of the city (it was cold)
• saw security break up a short lived Occupy NCTE:
• went geocaching
• watched nine consecutive episodes of Auction Hunters (Since we don’t have cable, Ally and I made the most of it while at the Marriott)

I also did a follow-up discussion on the role of fair use and Open Educational Resources on last week’s Teachers Teaching Teachers. You can tune into the archived show here.

Friday, November 18 was also a significant milestone for the Schools for Community Action. We submitted lengthy design plans to operate the four small schools that will make up the Augustus Hawkins Learning Complex that will ultimately relieve Manual Arts in the fall of 2012.

Along with a few colleagues I am honored to work with, I have helped design the proposed Critical Design and Gaming School (C:\DAGS).

Related to this, there are significant events within LAUSD that are noteworthy. However, to discuss the asinine competition involved for this school site, the importance of a recent district-union agreement, or to talk about the next steps of our work would spill into a lengthy discussion that I hope to more carefully articulate in upcoming posts. For now, know that C:\DAGS and our amazing sister schools (Community Health Advocates School; School of Urban Sustainability and Environmental Science; and Responsible Indigenous Social Entrepreneurship) are gaining traction.