Thanks (again) Maha for sharing your thoughts and making me think.

I had to laugh a little (respectfully !) because of your first intense reactions on twitter. It shows a character full of passion. 🙂
It reminds me of my beloved wife, who’s also full of temperament and passion.

It also shows that one can get to know each other on several aspects through online text.
You describe your feelings and actions, I interpret them and have my own feelings because of it.
It ‘proves’ your point that making meaningful connections through the internet is possible.

I liked your notes on the “hidden curriculum” in real campus life.
That’s very important IMO because the hidden curriculum is often more important than the official curriculum.
Online teaching, learning, connections could be a completely different thing because there’s less distraction of the learning.

I always say at my university that one of the most important things of campus life is meeting your future partner, often also the mother / father of your future children.
I say that to make teachers think about what’s going on in the heads of our students (with hormones racing through their bodies), and make them realize that there’s much more to students’ lives than the teachers’ assignments and lectures.

So, in other words, yes I think campus life is important, and yes I think there can be excellent learning through online connections.

Blogging and online sharing of student curated contents, can be ways to try to have the best of both worlds.