Happy Birthday CLmooc

Is this true?  Is this CLmooc’s birthday? My Google Calendar says so, and it’s linked to Google Plus…. so it… must be right?

What is CLmooc? From the history page:

Between 2013-2015, educators  from the National Writing Project network (NWP) designed and facilitated CLMOOC to support educators in playing with the design and learning  framework of  Connected  Learning. The Connected Learning framework supports learning as an interest-driven, production-centered activity in networked and peer-based communities and grew out of work of the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Initiative.

Through support from the MacArthur Foundation and as part of the NWP’s Educator Innovator Initiative, CLMOOC involved thousands of teachers alongside Educator Innovator partner organizations. It was designed as a massive open online collaboration rather than a course and it’s design was influenced by other connectivist, open, online opportunities in the larger field of cMOOCs (connectivist Massive Open Online Courses), such as #change11#etmooc,#DS106#rhizo.

This history was taken in part from the open access journal article Remix as Professional Learning: Educators’ Iterative Literacy Practice in CLMOOC by participants and researchers Anna Smith, Stephanie West-Puckett, Christina Cantrill & Mia Zamora.

Connected Collaboration started in 2013, with the hub a Google Plus Community. What did the community create and how did we connect in 2013?  Enjoy this Find Five Friday from July, 2013 where several of us shared our favorites:


Here’s what the G+ community page looked like on it’s opening shares — looks like June 20th.

You’ll see Paul Allison, Michael Buist, Chad Sansing, Kevin Hodgson, — familiar faces. And notice, Kim Douillard’s first post for her Photo Challenge! These faces and people have been inspiration to me and to each other since those early CLmooc days of 2013. Some of these people go back even farther.

CLmooc is all about connection and relationships– it was designed around shared interests, peer supports, and doing–producing. Isn’t it great that when CLmooc ended, that support and connection and relationship continued? That’s connected learning.

Do you wonder how people got started with CLmooc? Here’s my first post from June 17, 2013: Intro clmooc with openspokes, transformation reformation and teachtheweb! I updated that post so links that have changed are corrected and noted where we lost links [learni.st, Thimble as examples].

The post explains how I began CLmooc and how amazed I was of the learning — not a script or course, but many paths, by choice for voice, to learning by doing, sharing, discussing, reflecting in collaboration with others.

As I looked through those first few posts [scroll down, down, down here], I found some delightful examples of our shared work.

First I stopped at Joseph McCaleb‘s Credo for Learning, so worth a listen again. He’s still blogging too, here.

I noticed one of Anna’s working Thimble’s — a Find Friday Five. She’s the originator of the fave idea.

Some serious learning conversations occur, and even some serious content, like this Learning Walk by Karen Young. Just a walk to the library, and she finds history in plants — and a feather:

Educational Technology exploded at this time, and CLmooc demanded that we create and learn, to understand how the tools become ways for students to develop their own voices, to express themselves in considered ways according to their purposes and interests. Through play and collaboration, we understood the power of ideas shared in ever varied ways according to the best choice of presentation. Technology is always the tool, not the purpose. And so— as life moved on, we stayed connected, learning, making.

And what is Karen doing now? She’s in Latvia, blogging! How do I know? We’re still connected: Karen on Twitter:

What did I learn that year in CLmooc? I learned to experiment and share. Even though CLmooc was over, I experimented with sharing a process and a new tool, including recording the resulting poem, because poetry is Clmooc– literacy expanded with oPen Minds.

This pen

clickable, blue

and spilling, pulling

my words out of my mind

like a wormhole from

my universe to yours

to connect and understand

wish the world grand

O-Pen minds.

Like #Clmooc, my friends– connected learners, making open, online collaborations.  You are will always be a Slice of my Life.

Thank you, and Happy Birthday!


WC 697

Day 11

About #MoDigiWri

This post is an invitation and a response to Anna’s Challenge invitation: More MoDigiwri! [More Digital Writing]

And here’s the challenge:

So, we’re inviting you to engage in a combo of these two challenges, writing digitally every day to jump start your writing… and sharing and responding to others who are doing the same!

The writing can be about anything and come in any formUse the hashtag #modigiwri if you want to help people find your posts!

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on “Happy Birthday CLmooc
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