Community: A Reflective Journey

by Amar Abbott

Recently, I was asked to be a committee member to help plan this year’s Cyberlearning Convening. I was honored and a little surprised as I felt I had not contributed to the community since 2016 when I was a Cyberlearning buddy. As a “buddy” I met professionals in the field, participated in conference discussions, and provided project approval in a mock competition. I also met the Cyberlearning community and gave feedback from my perspective as an assistive technology expert regarding various projects. This experience helped me become a contributor to the educational corner blog part of CIRCL. At the time, I did not realize how I was becoming part of the Cyberlearning community. This is what researchers call legitimate peripheral participation (LPP); through LPP a person has the potential to become a part of a community (Lave & Wenger 1991).

Looking back to when I attended my first Cyberlearning meeting in 2016, I was genuinely excited to participate in it as a doctoral student and a Cyberlearning buddy. I was going to meet some of the leading researchers in the field of learning sciences, and I had a seat at the table to interact with them. (Needless to say, I was in awe of this opportunity.) I got to hear great keynote speakers such as Nicole Pinkerton discuss Using Cyberlearning to Create Equitable Learning Opportunities at City-Scale and Jim Sheldon’s Accelerating Innovation in Learning and Teaching: Creating and Leveraging the Policy Context. (Note, links go to videos of the talks.)

Dr. Pinkerton and Mr. Sheldon’s presentations moved me and made me realize how much of an impact the Cyberlearning community can have in changing lives. Even though I did not fully realize everything that was said and done at the meeting in 2016, I knew that merely participating was giving me the opportunity to learn from the experienced researchers and PIs in the room. I was excited to contribute to the conversations that involved my knowledge area of learning sciences, disability studies as well as issues of access and accessibility. I realized how much I needed to learn about this community so that I could be a knowledgeable contributor in the field; I was on the precipice of a great journey. Unfortunately, after the conference, I had too many things to do to further my membership in this community. I finished my doctorate in Learning Technologies and resumed my work as a college faculty member, believing I had lost my opportunity to further contribute to the Cyberlearning community.

I was thrilled by the invitation back to the Cyberlearning community in 2019. It allowed me to experience an epiphany when I heard the first keynote speaker and realized that I had grown over the past three years. When one of the keynote speakers, Dr. Safiya Noble, presented The Problems and Perils of Harnessing Big Data for Equity & Justice, I felt a connection to it, I understood every word she said, and instantly thought of ways to apply what I had learned from her in my work at my college and to help my students. Furthermore, when Angela Booker, the final keynote speaker, gave her presentation on Ethical Power Relations as an Act of Design, she referenced Lave and Wenger at a high level; I realized that I not only understood it but that I regularly observe the phenomenon she was discussing in my instructional practice. For example, Dr. Booker mentioned, persistent marginalization. Traditionally, persistent marginalization is a group or community that is on the fringe of the societal or cultural norms, such as people who study Wicca as their chosen religion. When I heard Dr. Booker speak of persistent marginalization it resonated with me because of the personal implications of the statement; I define it as a community member who could be on the fringe of the community and not be entirely accepted. As an academic with a learning disability, I often felt persistently marginalized, as if I did not belong in the community. I had felt this way about my role in the Cyberlearning community and academia as well.

In hindsight, now, this was a ridiculous notion because I have been a part of both the Cyberlearning and academic communities since grad school! In reality, I had been a contributor to the fields by implementing learning science theories and passing that knowledge along to my students and colleagues. Over time, I have become a resource for others at my institution; people look to me for help with accessibility, learning sciences, and instructional design. With this realization, my perspective about participating in the 2019 conference changed profoundly. This conference showed me how much I have transformed in the past three years regarding the learning sciences and how I contribute to this community. The conversations that I had with my colleagues at the conference have cemented my membership in the Cyberlearning community because I know that I am a valued member and a daily contributor to Cyberlearning when I share with my students and colleagues what has been generously passed on to me by all my colleagues in the Cyberlearning community.

On a personal note, I want to thank Dr. Judi Fusco for bringing me into the Cyberlearning community.