Why this blog?

Simply stated, to develop your thinking - reflective, critical and analytical and communication skills, while learning new and interesting things in the field of Logistics & Supply Chain Management. But again, why blog?

Blogs are brief. They are not term papers. You are not taxed with onerous task of creating a 6000 word full-length research paper here, but you still will be engaged in a creative activity putting your writing skills to practice.

Not just that. You will practice a special kind of communication skills, being crisp and precise. All that you have to say must be distilled to a concise half - one page of matter that clearly states your idea. Mind you, it is not easy.  A very valuable skill, for your profession and life.

Blogs can be enhanced with visuals. It is not a boring word document. You can plug in images, video, sound to enhance the meaning of your content and to create interest. Your posts can link to other websites to add more information or to connect to a related idea. Your posts can be made super interesting with some efforts. You can be at your creative best.

You can become responsive to one another.  You read other's posts, think about their ideas and critique those, enhance with even more ideas, debate, discuss by commenting.  Everyone in the course, this way, becomes both and author and a reader. Giving and taking feedback is a lesson to learn. 

...and, the evidence exists forever. Blogs are stored online and remain as a portfolio of your ability to write, think, and communicate. Because they appear as latest -post- first order, they are easily searchable, so refinements in your thinking is traced and demonstrated, showing evidence of your maturing as a thinker over time. Imagine, what it can do in your job interview! You just demonstrated how willingly you learn.

How are you going to use the blog in our course?

This is a blog that I own. Every student of this course will become a guest blogger on invitation. You are expected to do two things: actively contribute by posting original writing and continually engaging with your peers by commenting on their posts. 

This means, you will not only write posts, but also read every post that appears here, the only evidence of that will be your comments, which will be an expanded idea, or a counter point, or additional support or evidence materials. (One word replies/comments like 'OK, Good, great or poor, bad' etc or only Emojis do not qualify as evidence of reading). 

You will make sure you have made at least one post in a week, however brief, that is original and not a copy-paste. (Your own thoughts, reflections only will be considered original). The originality, appropriateness, newness, supporting materials and the way it is written will all be counted to assess the quality of your contribution.Of course, all your posts will only be in the theme of Logistics & Supply Chain Management. Finding interesting stuff to share is the way you will reach out to new knowledge.

This is a new effort I am attempting in my course and we shall add or relax guidelines as we go. The message I want you to take home is to seek out new knowledge.

Enjoy learning 😊