We’re still pushing the brooms and using the dust pans to clean up the digital confetti left over from the celebration week of CLMOOC. You folks sure know how to party! As the latest iteration of Connected Learning Massive Open Online Collaboration (you know, CLMOOC) comes to an unofficial ending moment, we wanted to take a break from the confetti clean-up to shout out thanks and appreciation to everyone involved.

We thank YOU for being a participant and for being open to all sorts of collaborative challenges. If this were a game show, you’d be going home with the Maserati. But this is CLMOOC. So you go home with something better (and no tax bill to worry about). You go home knowing that you have forged new friendships, strengthened old acquaintances and considered ways to frame Connected Learning concepts for the learners in your educational spaces. Thank you for being here with us, in whatever fashion it was. And if you are just arriving to CLMOOC: Welcome! You’re right on time!

We thank the many Make Cycle FACILITATORS who answered the call for a crowdsourced CLMOOC and stepped up so generously with their time and ideas and energy to lead us into themes of Cultivating Connections (Sarah and Sheri), Reciprocating Connections (Susan and Helen) and Celebration Connections (Allie and Scott, with Anna). And of course, we also engaged in the week of Purposeful Pause (Jeffrey and Charlene). There were also other folks backstage, acting as coaches to help the facilitators to think through ideas with offers of logistical help and assistance. It’s not hyperbole to say that CLMOOC would have not run in 2016 without all of these people volunteering their time and energy. CLMOOC was a model of distributed facilitation, in the most positive way possible.

We thank the National Writing Project, too, for being open to letting all of us take over CLMOOC for the summer of 2016 during a time when NWP’s attention is on its Letters to the Next President 2.0 project, which is designed on the same Connected Learning principles that anchor CLMOOC. We probably could have done some other sort of version of CLMOOC (altCMOOC? bizarroCLMOOC?) without NWP support, but CLMOOC is always so much stronger when it relies on its roots, and this summer’s CLMOOC is clearly built on the foundation of the previous three years when NWP was funding and supporting the idea of open collaboration with the launch of CLMOOC.

So, what happens now?

This is the final newsletter of the summer of CLMOOC 2016 but we’ve all been hard at work, compiling ways to stay connected to CLMOOC throughout the year. This is important. If CLMOOC is just an experience of summer, it has short resonance and limited reach. If we can extend the connections of CLMOOC throughout the year, it’s ethos and spirit becomes something larger. Mull over the following and see if any catch your attention. Just like the main CLMOOC experience, you decide what works for you and what doesn’t. You decide where to enter the conversations, where you might just observe and where you might not want to engage. Dip in. Swim in. Dive in.

YOU remain the center of CLMOOC, now and into the future.

Throughout the Year – There are many ways to stay engaged with CLMOOC’s connected community and beyond. Here are a few options to consider to remain active and connected with the people and the spirit of CLMOOC as summer fades away:

• Remain active on social media (Twitter, G+, Facebook, Instagram).
• Curate an eportfolio or a make log of the work you completed this summer.
• Join the ongoing postcard project.
• Peruse the Make Bank. Reuse or remix an idea in your own learning environment or consider adding a make, an example, or a tutorial.
• Participate in Kim Douillard’s photo challenges and #silentsundays (when you post an image to a CLMOOC community with no context text)
• Continue the #WhitmanWednesday of sharing out quotes from Walt Whitman or the #ThoreauThursday or invent your own with some more diverse poets
• Form an interest group on G+, FB, Slack, Voxer or some other space concerning a shared purpose.
• Come back to The Daily Connect for ideas and connections (Here is a random post generator.)
• The Daily Connect is a riff off The Daily Create, a daily prompt for creativity from the fertile and collective minds of DS106. (And a further offshoot is The Daily Stillness — prompts for meditation and thinking).
• Engage in continued “Curiosity Conversations” by interviewing someone.
• Take part in the National Writing Project’s Letters to the Next President project.
• Plan your own Pop Up Make Cycle (see example by Joe and Terry) or cMOOC experience (and if you do, let us know so we can spread the word).
• Join the CLMOOC Kiva micro-lending team, and “make a difference” in the world with small donations to worthy projects.
• Be part of the Goodreads CLMOOC Reading Club. We may try to read a book together this year.
• Join the CLMOOC group on Flickr.
• Get a CLMOOC Badge for your participation and collaboration.
• The iAnthology is a writing space for NWP-affiliated educators. (If you are in the CLMOOC, you are affiliated with NWP, as far as iAnthology is concerned.) There are weekly writing (facilitated by Kevin) and photo prompts (hosted by Kim).
• Margaret Simons (a CLMOOC alumni) hosts DigiLit Sundays at her blog, where she and others offer up ideas around digital literacies and invite readers to share information.
• Host a CLMOOC Flash Mob. Or CLMOOC Dance Party. Or CLMOOC Flash Mob Dance Party.
• Scott Glass’s weekly #edjoy posting – join and post your #edjoys!
• Consider joining another connectivist MOOC, such as Rhizomatic Learning, Humanmooc, DigPed, DS106, MOOC MOOC, Learning Resilience, etc.
• Join the #literacies chat for all things contemporary composition and communication!
• Digital Writing Month often happens in November but may not take place this year. Look for a #CLMOOC Pop-Up as possible replacement.
• The 4T Virtual Conference on Digital Writing is free and online and happens a few times a year. The next one is in October, and some CLMOOCers are presenters.
• Keep an eye out for a potential CLMOOC 2017. We don’t yet know what will happen with CLMOOC but we’ll be sure to get the word out when we do.

— CLMOOC