Virtual Learning Isn’t the Future of Education, It's Part of It.

For years, conversations about virtual learning have been framed as a debate. Traditional school or online school. In-person or remote. Technology or relationships. Those questions made sense during the uncertainty of the pandemic, but they miss a much more important shift happening in education today.

The real conversation isn’t about where students learn. It’s about whether we’re willing to design learning around who students are.

While attending ISTE 2026, we had the opportunity to sit down with Michelle Geyer, principal of Warren Online Academy in Indiana. Her school serves students in a K–12 online and hybrid environment, but what stood out wasn’t the technology. It was the philosophy.

Listening to Michelle describe her work made something incredibly clear: the most innovative virtual schools aren’t replicating traditional classrooms online. They’re rethinking what learning can look like when flexibility becomes the foundation rather than an accommodation.

Too often we ask, “What does a typical day look like?” Michelle’s answer was refreshingly simple: there isn’t one.

At Warren Online Academy, every student’s experience is different. Some learners participate in synchronous lessons every day. Others move primarily through asynchronous coursework. Some attend classes on campus several days a week while others learn entirely from home. Rather than forcing students into a single model, the school adjusts the model to fit the learner.

That shift may sound subtle, but it’s transformational.

For decades, schools have been built around standardization. The schedule is standardized. The pacing is standardized. Success is often standardized. Yet students have never been standardized. They arrive with different passions, different responsibilities, different learning preferences, and different barriers. Personalized learning asks educators to acknowledge that reality instead of asking students to conform to a system that wasn’t designed with their individuality in mind.

Hear Thinkering Impact Board Member Stacy Hawthorne provide insight into the future learning landscape here:

Michelle argues that flexibility isn’t simply a convenience for families, it’s often the reason families seek out virtual schools in the first place. They’re looking for an educational environment that recognizes their child’s unique needs instead of expecting those needs to fit neatly into an existing structure.

That perspective feels especially important in a post-pandemic world.

Before COVID-19, online learning existed, but many families didn’t realize it was even an option. The pandemic dramatically changed that awareness. Suddenly millions of students experienced learning outside the classroom, and while many struggled, something else happened that often gets overlooked.

Some students thrived.

For learners dealing with anxiety, neurodiversity, health challenges, family responsibilities, or simply learning differences, virtual environments removed barriers that traditional classrooms unintentionally created. Those students weren’t succeeding because online learning was inherently better. They were succeeding because they were finally learning in an environment that matched the way they functioned best.

That realization challenges one of education’s longest held assumptions, there isn’t one ideal learning environment. There are simply environments that better support different learners.

At Thinkering, we’ve seen this firsthand. During the height of the pandemic, our early childhood programs quickly adapted to support essential worker families. What surprised us wasn’t simply that students continued learning. It was that some children experienced their strongest year academically and emotionally because the environment aligned with what they needed.

Those experiences forced many educators, including ourselves, to rethink personalization.

Personalized learning isn’t about giving every student a different worksheet. It’s about recognizing that context matters. Sometimes that context is a classroom. Sometimes it’s a community project. Sometimes it’s a virtual environment where students feel psychologically safe enough to fully engage.

One of the biggest criticisms of online education has always been community. How do students develop relationships if they’re learning behind screens?

Michelle believes the answer isn’t found in virtual assemblies or occasional icebreakers. It’s found in instructional design.

She describes three essential forms of interaction in online learning, with two being absolutely critical: student-to-teacher interaction and student-to-student interaction. Every lesson, whether live or asynchronous, should intentionally create opportunities for both.

That means students shouldn’t simply complete assignments in isolation. They should collaborate, respond to one another, share ideas publicly, reflect together, and build relationships through authentic learning experiences. Community isn’t something that happens outside instruction. It should be woven directly into instruction itself.

See how mental health plays a role in the need for virtual education here:

It’s a powerful reminder that belonging doesn’t emerge accidentally. It has to be designed. Perhaps the most compelling insight from our conversation wasn’t about online learning at all. It was about educational ecosystems.

Michelle doesn’t believe every school should become virtual. Instead, she sees online learning as one pathway within a larger network of options that comprehensive school districts should provide. Families deserve choices because students deserve environments where they can flourish. That’s an important distinction.

Innovation isn’t replacing one system with another. Innovation is expanding the number of meaningful pathways available so every learner has a place where they can thrive.

As educators, we often ask whether technology belongs in schools. Maybe the better question is whether we’re willing to let technology help us create more human-centered learning experiences.

When virtual learning is designed intentionally, with relationships, flexibility, reflection, and belonging at its core, it stops being about screens. It becomes about people.

The future of education likely won’t be fully online, and it won’t be fully traditional either. It will be flexible. It will be relational. It will acknowledge that every learner’s journey looks different, and it will build systems capable of honoring those differences instead of resisting them.

That’s not simply a vision for virtual schools.

It’s a vision for education itself.