The most important open space is your mind

Much has happened over the last few weeks that my little brain sometimes has difficulty catching up with it all, being a Tui chick and all, but all of a sudden some thought s are crystallising, please bear with my while I try to  get these thoughts on this virtual paper.

My first GAFE Summit last week was great at many levels, and you can read my post about this here. I learnt some new tips and tricks, made new connections and renewed old ones (e.g. by showering poor +Megan Croll with coffee... country bumpkin in the city comes to mind...), found new resources, had some thoughts, especially about myself, challenged. This was followed by the 1 year anniversary of +TeachMeetNZ, founded and very competently led by the fantastic +Sonya Van Schaijik. Presenters included @MissDtheTeacher @stephen_tpk@gingamusings @kaiako_nz @gmacmanus @chasingalyx. You can watch the recorded session on the TeachMeetNZ wiki, it is an amazing depository of mini presentations from NZ Educators about topics relevant for NZ education. This was the third TeachMeetNZ I have been involved in, and it has been fascinating for me to look back over my own journey through this time - from "how did I get into this awe inspiring groups of people" to "are you sure I can contribute something to the discussion" to "let me help you get your message out there". Sometimes I wonder how much our tall poppy syndrome, which even immigrants like me adopt very quickly, almost by osmosis, is standing in the way of progress?

In this Storify, once again from the super-onto-it +Marnel van der Spuy, you can see my and other tweeps' tweets about the event:

I had the privilege of hearing +Michaela Pinkerton presentation more than once (in the running up to it and at the event), and the quote that stuck with me the most was

"The most important open space is your mind". 

How open is my mind, am I a connected, life-long learner?

How can I as facilitator create open space for my learners, my schools, their leaders, teachers, students, whānau & community, to be connected, life-long learners?

Do learners need particular pre-requisites, scaffolds to be ready for such an open space, and what would that be?

What do you think?