Why Distance Learning?

Many people think of distance learning as impersonal—a screen separating students from real connection. But at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, it’s doing the exact opposite. It’s bringing students face-to-face with legends, life lessons, and the values that make great teams—and great people.

In this episode, Jerry Csaki, Senior Director of Youth, Education, and Leadership at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, shares how he’s turned virtual learning into a front-row seat to greatness. Through the award-winning Heart of a Hall of Famer series, students across nearly every state connect live with NFL icons to talk about character, integrity, and perseverance. What began as a local field trip program has become a global platform for teaching leadership and belonging.

Jerry reveals how distance learning expands access to stories that inspire—stories that remind students that greatness isn’t about fame or stats, but about resilience, teamwork, and heart.

Listeners will learn:
  • How the Pro Football Hall of Fame uses live virtual programs to teach life values through sports.
  • Why distance learning is about access—to people, perspectives, and purpose.
  • How technology transformed the Hall of Fame’s programs from local field trips to global connections.
  • What makes stories of perseverance and leadership so powerful when shared directly by the legends who lived them.
If you believe distance learning can only go so far, Jerry Csaki’s story will expand your definition of what’s possible when technology connects classrooms to character.

Episode Links
Host Links
  • Explore virtual learning resources and programs at CILC.org with Tami Moehring and Allyson Mitchell
  • Discover global learning experiences at Banyan Global Learning with Seth Fleischauer
Want to help us reshape distance learning?
Share this episode with a colleague, reflect on your own “why,” and remember: the power of distance learning lies in the connections it creates—between students, stories, and the human spirit.

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.