Why Distance Learning?

Jan Zanetis is a distance learning pioneer who spent 20 years in K-12 and higher ed before working for DL powerhouses TANDBERG and Cisco Systems. In 2013, she became the Managing Director at the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration. Jan retired from CILC in 2022 where she mentored cohost Tami Moehring and was a clear and present inspiration to cohost Allyson Mitchell. Due to these close relationships, be forewarned that this episode gets a little sappy! Now freshly retired, Jan - who literally wrote the book (or, rather, several books) on distance learning - shares some extremely practical knowledge about the medium, talks about the power of publishing, and shares her secrets on how to be a successful female leader in a tech world dominated by men.   You can always keep up with Allyson and Tami at the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC) here: https://bit.ly/445KkjM As always you can stay connected with Seth at Banyan Global Learning here: https://bit.ly/3NOScAn

Show Notes

Jan Zanetis is a distance learning pioneer who spent 20 years in K-12 and higher ed before working for DL powerhouses TANDBERG and Cisco Systems. In 2013, she became the Managing Director at the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration. Jan retired from CILC in 2022 where she mentored cohost Tami Moehring and was a clear and present inspiration to cohost Allyson Mitchell. Due to these close relationships, be forewarned that this episode gets a little sappy! Now freshly retired, Jan - who literally wrote the book (or, rather, several books) on distance learning - shares some extremely practical knowledge about the medium, talks about the power of publishing, and shares her secrets on how to be a successful female leader in a tech world dominated by men.   

You can always keep up with Allyson and Tami at the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC) here: https://bit.ly/445KkjM

As always you can stay connected with Seth at Banyan Global Learning here: https://bit.ly/3NOScAn

Creators and Guests

Host
Allyson Mitchell
SF
Host
Seth Fleischauer
TM
Host
Tami Moehring

What is Why Distance Learning??

Why Distance Learning? is a podcast about the decisions, design choices, and assumptions that determine whether live virtual learning becomes shallow and transactional—or meaningful, relational, and effective at scale.

The show is designed for education leaders, instructional designers, and system-level practitioners responsible for adopting, scaling, and sustaining virtual, hybrid, and online learning models. Each episode examines the structural conditions under which distance learning actually works—and the predictable reasons it fails when it doesn’t.

Through conversations with researchers, experienced practitioners, and field-shaping leaders, Why Distance Learning? translates research, field evidence, and lived experience into decision-relevant insight. Episodes surface real tradeoffs, near-failures, and hard-won lessons, equipping listeners with clear framing and language they can use to explain, defend, or redesign distance learning models in real organizational contexts.

Hosted by Seth Fleischauer of Banyan Global Learning, and Allyson Mitchell and Tami Moehring of the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, the podcast challenges outdated narratives about distance learning and explores what becomes possible when live virtual education is designed intentionally, human-centered, and grounded in evidence.