#CLMOOC: Coloring Inside, and Outside, the Lines

Mandala Colored

The first Make Cycle of CLMOOC 2017 launched this weekend, with a theme of coloring and art. Our friends Ron and Algot will be leading the week, with a project called The Collaborative Coloring Book. Folks will be using a variety of tools and technology (or not, as the case might be) to create blank coloring pages, putting them into an ebook format, and then downloading other peoples’ page, coloring them and uploading those colored pages into another ebook (ie, done with Google Presentation).

The idea is to merge the way we make art with the ways we collaborate, tapping into Connected Learning principles around “shared practice,” following your own passions, collaborating as an open network, as well as making something for a peer-supported “authentic audience.” Oh, and fun. We’re having some fun here.

CLMOOC, by the way, stands for Connected Learning MOOC (we’ve all long downplayed the Massive and removed the Course in that MOOC acronym, and highlight the alternative frame name of Collaboration.) This is the fifth year of CLMOOC, which was launched and supported for three years by the National Writing Project. Now it is run by the Crowd — folks who have been part of CLMOOC and now run it on their own time and with their own passions.

An uncolored image of the one at the top of this post was created by Robin, shared on Twitter and then put into the Collaborative Coloring Book. I grabbed a copy from the book, took out my box of colored pencils, and spent some time coloring in last night.

I quickly realized there were a lot of little boxes in Robin’s piece. But I found myself becoming very focused and meditative as I was coloring her Mandala, letting the world fade out of focus for a bit. I wanted to share what I did with her, to show her how another person might interpret her coloring piece. So I did.

Cover of the Coloring Book

You can join us, too, of course. Read more about this week’s Make Cycle (including a live Make with Me session planned for tomorrow, with Algot and Ron and others), tinker with some new ideas and add your coloring page to the collaborative book. There are no set rules.  Just an open invitation.

Color outside the lines as much as you need.

Peace (with crayons and markers),
Kevin

One Comment
  1. I continue to be inspired by you and the #clmooc community, and your creativity. I also keep hoping to motivate some of you to focus your talent on doing new versions of graphics that interns created while working with me between 2006 and 2015. This Pinterest site shows some. https://www.pinterest.com/tutormentor/graphics-by-interns/

    This link shows presentations which used some of these graphics. Every frame could be a new image given new emphasis by someone else. http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/definition-of-issues/ideasanimation/intern-strategies

    Thanks to Terry Elliot for pointing me to Inoreader, which I use daily to update myself on what the many members of the #clmooc and learning community are sharing.

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