Britt I absolutely loved the Seagull – it really grabbed my attention as did you opening sentence. Totally agree there never is a good time especially considering that different school years.

you and I both about the time commitment bit.

I’ve found it exhilarating but very exhausting – the newness of it all for me I guess. I’m learning all the time though.

As an elearning teacher myself I now appreciate what my students must feel like when confronted with assignments that they have to perform on software that they are unfamiliar with.

I find that there is so much I have to remember too, or it all goes to mush, as it were. That’s the fun bit I guess – when it all goes to mush I mean.

Thanks for your support and your own thoughts on the Challenge so far.

Ka kite

And Bud, you should cut and paste this over to your blog at http://exploratorylearner.blogspot.com/ – it is a great post just as it is!

As I walked to Starbucks with Britt, I started talking about thoughts I was having about the first 7 days of the 31 day challenge. I said that I felt like posting that the 31 day challenge is just that; 31 days of 24/7, non-stop commitment to blogging. The idea promotes the concept that you have to always be monitoring, reading and writing. I also said that since the challenge started just before last weekend and I chose to address a number of other personal time demands in my 1st life (yard, house, church, piping, etc.), that knocked two days out. My days have been busy with work issues and evenings this week have also had other time demands; suddenly I’m feeling stressed and most of 7 days behind. Britt then stopped me and said, “read my recent post”. The point is that Britt has already posted about several of the ideas I’ve been contemplating. I could accuse him of taking my ideas, but that’s not the case. Ideas are in the air. I think that’s why there are so many similar posts. When the time is right, forces present ideas and the first to snag them gets credit. This concept is not a new one. It is a thought that was shared with me by Jewett Campbell (a graduate school instructor), who’s father was an inventor. His father told him that “ideas are in the air”. Essentially, if you make contact with one, act on it quickly.

I’m getting the sense from this networked community that we are all struggling with balance in our lives. And, periodically, we recognize some of the issues raised by Britt in an earlier post as well as thoughts shared by Jeff Nugent about his fishing trip. The metaphor discussed there was the stream and ideas, blogs, twitter, etc. represented information constantly flowing down the stream. Jeff learned during is vacation that it’s OK to dip into the stream and then walk away for a while.

I’ll continue to look for threads of these ideas in other posts as we all begin to figure out our individual rhythm of participation and how to make this experience meaningful without creating unnecessary stress.

Bud

We’ll be posting notes from Ruben’s talk. I’ll let you know when it happens.