After months of preparation and work, I missed the Landing launch thanks to being on the side of an Austrian mountain with wifi provided by a malignant tatzelwurm. This malignant being continues to limit access to the net to all but the odd few minutes. From the glimpses I get every now and then, things are going much as expected: problems using the site, bugs, confusions, complaints and so on, but also some excitement, amusement, interest and curiosity. This is the result of a process participative design and we are hoping to build and change our systems based on what we learn from and with the pioneering inhabitants of the Landing.

Why is this site called the Landing? We liked the name and our advisory network felt the same. Once upon a time the town now called Athabasca was known as Athabasca Landing, the Gateway to the North. It was a staging post on the way to the Klondike, a thriving, bustling shanty town rich in social interaction and opportunity. We also liked the other shades of meaning in the word 'landing': a space between things, a place to rest, a place to gather, a place to begin.

Personally, I'm really glad to have a stable home for my blog again after many months of being between systems. And I'm really glad to have a rich social space in which to develop alternative and (I think) better ways of helping people to learn. But most of all, I'm really glad that we have taken the first faltering steps towards adding a bit of social velcro, something to help fill the gaps between the many systems and isolated islands of our virtual campus, something to bring people together and sustain community ties. It's going to change and grow a lot over the next year or so. No doubt there will be failures as well as delights and no doubt we will all learn a lot in the process. It's going to be fun!