Wikis seem to be the 'in thing'

Wikis seemed to take a back seat in the ether world till just recently. Lots of people seem to have discovered their worth all of a sudden, or is it just me finally catching up? Thanks you, Martha, for starting a TROPIC wiki. And thank you, Val, for your invitation to a focus group on social learning via a wiki. Thanks also for the invitation to join the Connected Learning Communities wiki, Wendy. I am hoping they will help people to interact more than blogs do and have left a couple of comments to help the process along. And here's some Dancing Lady orchids, interacting all together on one stem.

Stephen Downes' October keynote address in Aukland

I have unlimited broadband this month thanks to a new deal with Telstra so am listening to all kinds of things I usually can't easily get to. One of them was Stephen Downes' talk about the difference between groups and networks, and how groups create walls and barriers and exclusivity while networks tend to break down these concepts and allow different kinds of information flow/connectivity. And he related it to how we learn, among other things. It was interesting - thanks, Stephen.

While I was listening to the talk, I also looked at the beautiful pictures Stephen Downes had uploaded of New Zealand - kind of echoed the message in that most pics that struck me were the vista pics - the ocean, the forests, the views of mountains and rolling hills. No walls there. Try it and tell me what you think. Here are the links:

• Slide shows: http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?journal=3529
• Talk: http://www.downes.ca/files/audio/nz3.mp3

And I thought I needed to upload a Tableland vista of my own. New Zealand and Canada don't have ALL the beauty spots in the world, though who could decide which one topped them all? This is a picture taken from a verandah at Skybury, outside Mareeba.