Injecting the "human" in teaching and learning

My reply to this discussion is coloured by two perspectives - I work in a Canadian Secondary school - teaching mainly 15, 16 and 17 year olds, mostly males (computer science). The second perspective I will address is my (somewhat limited) experience with online courses.
In the first case, if I see my job primarily as a dispenser of information, and the process of education as the students absorbing and regurgitating that information, the element of humanity becomes less of an issue. Nevertheless, I find that I am at my best as a teacher, and my students learn best, when I make a concerted effort to inject humanity into the process -even a highly technological subject like computer science. For me, that means building personal relationships with students, letting them see that you are a multi-dimensional person who shares similar interests with them, who is interested in reflection and dialog on a variety of subjects, who gets to know them sufficiently to differentiate the delivery according to individual needs. For my students, these methods are much more motivating than anything else I can do.
      My personal experience with online courses tells me the same from my perspective as a student. I am following a series of lectures from a seminary on theology and church history. All I do is listen - fascinating stuff, but purely passive - and purely one dimensional - and sometimes hard to stay focussed (especially when done on the Internet where there are so many other distractions). I have taken pedagogy courses which are online, and which involve some interaction with instructors and other students - all text based - the interaction is interesting, subjects are fascinating, but not as gripping as this MOOC. What for me injects the humanity into this MOOC are the interactions with classmates - not so much academic and intellectual discourse - as interesting as that is - but the hints I get from peoples postings - of what they are experiencing - exhilarated, engaged, focussed - yes, but also frustrated, overwhelmed, confused, lacking in confidence etc. I love the wonderful variety that comes from the perspective of so many from around the world. The variety of approaches (video, text, interaction, free-form) of this course give it that humanity. I would also say the ability to see the instructors in the hangout really made the course come alive for me - to realize there are real people behind the writing and the emails - to get some glimpse of the personalities - and the comments in various postings - to realize Jen Ross is a fellow Canadian. These for me have helped build the sense of community and the sense of engagement with the course - what I would call humanity.