Missing Touch

At the OUPBlog, Judith Bowman writes about a problem in online learning I had not even considered—

What is the human touch in online learning? How do you know if it’s there? What does it look and feel like? My epiphany on this topic occurred when a student told me “I thought I would have done better if I had a real teacher."

It was difficult enough for me to face the possibility that people are starting to treat robots as acceptable substitutes; now I've got to face the responsibility that a remote person can be seen as unreal.