Teaching online—a short statement

Someone asked me to write a short statement about online teaching. This is what I wrote:

Teaching all-online courses—which I have done for many years by now—has completely refreshed my pedagogy. My students are intergenerational, diverse in all ways, typically geographically far-flung, and often living in communities underserved by educational resources. They challenge me with intensely intellectual but often non-academic questions, bringing into being the best sort of ideas-based community. True, I haven’t met in person most of my online students but I feel that I know them and they me. Online learning need not be impersonal.