Caught by the pulse of this learning event

Jenny called it the resonance and I just read a blog post, but can't remember whose it was, where it was called the pulse: this event has a momentum that really catches you; the participants, and also the facilitators. I presume I can't speak for any of the others, but this learning event has taken over my life. I find it addictive and hard to not check my #PLENK2010 Twitter stream at night and read some blog posts. I found myself watching a football match and at the same time writing a blog post for PLENK. The emails are streaming out of my inbox with queries and discussion topics that I would like to get talking about. Where will I find the time in the next 10 weeks to be involved in PLENK and to do other work?

I understand the feeling several of you have expressed of being overloaded; luckily I don't feel overloaded as I have carefully made selections of my readings and communications from the Daily and discussion board, but I do feel as if this event has caught me by the scruff of the neck (or is that not an English expression?) and its pulse has caught me.

This week we tried to define PLE and PLN and I think we have done that and more as we already started unpacking new aspects of the PLE/PLN debate, with discussions on information abundance and the attention economy, and blog posts and technologies to show what a PLE or PLN could look like. I liked some of the creative wording that materialized: 'The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time'; I could see the keyboards and hear the music. And other creative expressions in the production of videos and podcasts that has already taken place. The different language streams are also really good to see, but I wish I would be able to figure out what the Spanish posts have to say, which I can't, so I might have to invest some time as some did to use an online translation service to give me a gist of what went on there.

A new dimension will be added to the mix from next week: Every Wednesday  for the next nine weeks someone with expertise on the topic of the week will join the Wednesday session to provide us with a different focus to the debate and I look forward to next Wednesday with Martin Weller from the Open University in the UK and the topic of the week: Contrasting personal learning with institutional learning.

Thank you all for spicing up my working life this week and I hope we can keep the vibe of the conversation going next week.