Un peu comme une météorite qui entre dans l’atmosphère, les Humanoïdes associés n’en finissent plus de se désintégrer avec le départ des plus grands titres et auteurs de leur catalogue. Cette fois c’est Ptiluc qui quitte la maison de Métal Hurlant pour Soleil. Le 10e volume de Rat’s, sa série phare, y est annoncé pour juin 2009.

30 ans après sa parution aux Humanos, le mythique Arzach de Moebius va avoir une suite en 2009, chez Stardom, maison d’édition perso de l’auteur. C’est ce que révèle actuabd.com, qui annonce que la nouveauté sera une sorte de “Blueberry mâtiné d’héroïc fantasy”. D’ici là, nous pourrons toujours nous plonger dans les carnets de l’auteur avec Inside Moebius, dont le cinquième tome est attendu ce mois-ci.

Bien loin des considérations de TF1, Étienne Davodeau nous raconte les aventures extraordinaires de Lulu, ménagère de moins de 50 ans. Mariée, trois enfants, à la faveur d’un énième refus dans sa recherche d’emploi, elle décide de prendre des vacances sur un coup de tête. Un voyage en dehors de sa routine. En spécialiste des fictions du réel, l’auteur nous procure dans ce premier tome une aventure singulièrement zen, tant tout semble couler de source pour sa femme au foyer moyenne. Un bol d’air frais qui donne envie, tout simplement.
En deux mots : Partir un jour
D’Étienne Davodeau, aux éditions Futuropolis - 80 pages - 16 €

Aujourd’hui, de nombreux sites qui traitent de l’école ont fermé, en soutien du mouvement de grève. J’ai réalisé un dessin pour l’occasion libre de droit et que vous pouvez voir par exemple là , là , là , là , là ou encore sur les sites de cette liste . (Mais bizarrement pas sur ce site ).

Et parce qu’elle est toujours d’actualité, je rediffuse cette planche de l’album “Le journal d’un remplaçant ” que vous avez probablement tous déjà lu (sinon ça vous fait une bonne idée de cadeau de Noël ) et que j’avais dessiné à l’occasion de la grève du 18 janvier 2005 :

À lire sur leMonde.fr : Grève dans l’éducation : les revendications

Remember the Flickr & Libraries post? Here’s a great respoonse from a library director:

My point is that we have so much legalese that comes in that it cripples a library’s ability to operate in this way. You can’t put people’s picture on flickr because of their rights (even though they don’t care). It’s no wonder that libraries can often seem faceless or uncaring. All the legal makes it so you can’t do very much or you violate someone’s privacy. Libraries are afraid to use a patron’s email to let them know about an event at the library or services they may be interested in. The only pictures we can use are of the building or inanimate objects. The only video can be of library staff. I understand the privacy issue. However, the LIBRARY is faceless as a result.

Great article in EDUCAUSE by Bryan Alexander and Alan Levine. Alan writes the CogDog Blog, one of my favorites.

http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/Web20StorytellingEmergenc/47444

A story has a beginning, a middle, and a cleanly wrapped-up ending. Whether told around a campfire, read from a book, or played on a DVD, a story goes from point A to B and then C. It follows a trajectory, a Freytag Pyramid—perhaps the line of a human life or the stages of the hero’s journey. A story is told by one person or by a creative team to an audience that is usually quiet, even receptive. Or at least that’s what a story used to be, and that’s how a story used to be told. Today, with digital networks and social media, this pattern is changing. Stories now are open-ended, branching, hyperlinked, cross-media, participatory, exploratory, and unpredictable. And they are told in new ways: Web 2.0 storytelling picks up these new types of stories and runs with them, accelerating the pace of creation and participation while revealing new directions for narratives to flow.

How can libraries tell stories in this manner?

We just opened an amazing room for early literacy at the Waukegan Public Library. The impetuous for the room was a survey conducted by the United Way on Kindergarten Readiness in Spanish and English. Cut to the chase—the children of Waukegan are entering school unprepared, children are not doing well in school and several schools in Waukegan are on the No Child Left Behind watch list.

Within 6 months we had architectural plans to put in a stimulating, engaging, room for preschoolers featuring multiple places to explore with hands-on learning. There is a pretend play theatre, arts and crafts center, science and math lab, nature center, music hall and a “crawl space” for infants.

We’ve gotten some good online press about it at I Love Libraries, School Library Journal, and the Suburban Chicago News.

Here is a some info on the planning.

The concept for the center sprang from a 2006 United Way survey that showed only 43% of Waukegan kindergartners ever attend preschool, and 77% speak Spanish as their primary language. Over half the kids surveyed had little or no exposure to books before entering public school. The study also showed that in this largely Hispanic community, eight out of ten new kindergartners can’t recognize the letters in the alphabet. The library had previously set aside 2,200 square feet to build a space dedicated to preschoolers, but prior to this study coming out the room’s primary function would have been to hold the preschool book collection.

“I was astounded by the percentages,” says Richard Lee, Executive Director of the library. “Looking at those deficiencies, we decided to set some measurable goals.” With guidance from Waukegan School District
60, the library began planning an Early Learning Center (ELC) dedicated to developing four pre-literacy skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Developers based the design on the Illinois Early Learning
Standards set by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), creating stations for science and math, pretend play, storytimes, arts and crafts, nature, music, and infant development.

Using the Kohl Children’s Museum in Glenview as a model, the architects crafted the space to engage the senses and appeal to each child’s inner explorer-with costumes to don, bells to ring, dough to squish and paint to dab. Of course, the center also holds an extensive collection of picture and board books, as well as games and puzzles to foster pre-reading skills. Signage appears in English and Spanish.

Elizabeth Stearns
Assistant Director of Community Services
www.waukeganpl.org

I've been reading this site called I Keep a Diary for I don't know how long, six years at least. The site is a hand-crafted throwback to an earlier web era, a series of annotated photo galleries that document the life, times, adventures, and friends of Brian Battjer Jr. Like its proprietor, the site is funny, enthusiastic, and good-natured, and that's what keeps me coming back for more. I even visit the splash page each time I go because I like the quote that appears on it so much:

i feel nostalgia for things i've never known

IKAD is one of my favorite things on the web and the most recent entry is so truly magical that I had to share. Brian is more than a year behind in documenting his adventures so he's just now getting around to telling the story of his July 2007 trip to Thailand and the United Arab Emirates with his girlfriend, Meredith. After telling his boss that he's taking a month off of work, subletting his apartment, and arranging to stay with a friend in Dubai, he and Meredith speed off to the airport.

At this point, I urge you to just go read the story -- it's great and Brian tells it *way* better than I could -- because I'm going to ruin a lot of it. If you need more convincing of this story's wonderfulness, read on.

Anyway, off they go to JFK for their flight to Dubai. The woman at the Emirates check-in desk has no record of their tickets...becaue they got to the airport a whole day late. After some nervous moments, the woman finds them some seats on the plane.

Fast forward 12 hours or so: they land and deplane. Meredith discovers that she lost her passport and she swears that the thing is still on the plane. Emirates won't let her get back on the plane to look for it but they send an employee to look for it. No dice. They then spent several hours trying to find somone to let them on the plane to search. No luck. Intense panic sets in; the plane is scheduled to leave for NYC in an hour or two.

At this point, Brian phones his friend in Dubai, Bernadette, whom he has never met in person, and explains to her the situation. She says, "I'm on the way to the airport now...I'll see what I can do." It turns out that Bernadette's boss is a sheikh, one of the richest men in the world, and one of the most powerful men in Dubai. Bernadette arrives and tells them that her boss has dispatched his "fixer", his Mr. Wolf. "You ain't got no problems, Brian. I'm on the motherfucker. Chill out and wait for Mahmoun, who should be comin' directly."

"Shit Negro, that's all you had to say."

Sure enough, about ten minutes later a very large, serious-looking Emirati man walked up to the armed guards at immigration and with a nod, they let the dude through! We were like "Whoa." Mahmoun came over to us, and asked us to tell him the problem (and he even whipped out a little pad to take notes just like Mr. Wolf!). After we'd finished explaining to him that we were almost 100% sure that the passport was still on the plane, he was like "Meredith you come with me. Bernadette and Brian, you wait here."

He came back like two minutes later with ten airline employees in tow and said something like "This airplane is supposed to fly back to New York in forty-five minutes, but it's not going anywhere until the passport that's on there is found. So let's go find it."

Did Meredith recover the passport? Does Mahmoun go medieval on anyone's ass? Oh, you'll have to find out for yourself.

It’s nice to see the medium of online video used to its greatest potential. Today’s pinnacle: a mash-up of the new trailer for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek and the Beverly Hills 90210 theme song. Magnificent.

And sometimes making your content available to the masses pays off. Big time. Today Steve Bryant breaks down how Monty Python’s new YouTube channel has spiked their Amazon sales, to the point where “the nearest sales competitors include two DVD packages of perennially popular TV series 24, the new release of Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work, and one of the most popular films of the year, The Dark Knight.” Not bad for a group of blokes who haven’t done anything new since 1983. Check out the full analysis at NewTeeVee Station!

The Cincinnati Junior Makers group started as a bunch of bike riding fathers with young kids. The group used to go on rides hauling their cherubs around on bike trailers and tagalongs. Now the kids are old enough to ride on their own, but not quite up for the challenge of traffic. Since they like each others' company and are raising clever kids, they have turned to Make to help provide some worthwhile activities.

Brad Writes:

We spent a few hours making and decorating the rockets. Then off to the local park to launch. These were simply AMAZING! A friend who is also in the club had made 2L water rockets last year - he brought his setup as well and we had a rocketfest! My wife is taking the video - you can see from her response at the launch how successful this was (I am the guy in the black Make t-shirt). We spent maybe 2-3 hours launching, repairing, and modifying the rockets. Who knew that simple fin modifications could be so impactful. This one was so successful that I have done it 3 times since with people who missed the first session.

You can check out the article in Make 15, or try these links to the digital pages. First - Second Third - Fourth - Fifth - Sixth

Would you like to use Make as a resource for organizing activities and project with students and kids? If you do, take some pictures and video, add them to the Make Flickr pool. If you have a set of pictures, add some text explaining what you did to the set description.