John Connell: The Blog

.…..was strewn with great com­pany in the shape of Judy O’Connell and her col­league, Pat Bar­rett. I got my very first sight of the Pacific Ocean at the lovely lit­tle Clovelly Beach, fol­lowed by a cup of tea in a cafe on Coogee Beach nearby. Pat then drove us to lunch (where I met Gary Brown) via the Syd­ney Olympic Vil­lage — still very much a thriv­ing and sus­tain­able part of Sydney’s cul­tural and sport­ing life. Like all great projects, sus­tain­abil­ity was built in from the foun­da­tions up. Lunch at a nice Lebanese restau­rant and then onto the sem­i­nar venue.

It’s always more daunt­ing, I think, speak­ing to a small group — there’s nowhere to hide!! But, as I fully expected, they were a warm, friendly and lively bunch of pro­fes­sion­als. The dis­cus­sion after I fin­ished speak­ing was sharp and insight­ful, with some hard ques­tions raised, ones that I’m no closer to find­ing the answer to than any­one else.

And join­ing the dis­cus­sion was Al Upton, of mini-legends fame. Hav­ing fol­lowed his and Judy’s blogs for so long, it is a lovely expe­ri­ence to meet the real human beings behind their words and thoughts!

So — onto the Global Sum­mit itself, which starts tomor­row (and to the GENIE — Global Exchange of Net­works in Edu­ca­tion — meet­ing before­hand). Look­ing for­ward to it all.…

Tech­no­rati Tags: globalsummit06, par­ra­matta, al upton, judy o’connell, syd­ney

§ 2 Responses to The Road to Parramatta…"

• Judy O'Connell says:

  October 16, 2006 at 9:05 am

  It was an hon­our and delight to have John and Al come to meet with us in Par­ra­matta. A great buzz, and a good deal of inspi­ra­tional thoughts, ideas, and chal­lenges. Isn’t it fan­tas­tic that blog­ging cre­ates the oppor­tu­ni­ties to meet in per­son and spend time in pro­fes­sional dia­logue. Fabulous!

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• Bloggers can unite the world! « heyjude says:

  October 16, 2006 at 2:54 pm

  […] It’s pos­si­ble that today, more than any day ever, has shown me the power of Web 2.o to be the cat­a­lyst for change and moti­va­tion in edu­ca­tion. The fact that blog­ging has lead to an oppor­tu­nity for face-to-face dia­logue with John Con­nell, Learn­ing Futures Strate­gist from LT in Scot­land is amaz­ing! Thank you John for tak­ing the time out in your short Aussie stay to chat with some of us downunder. […]

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