Having been a SCM blogger for a long time, it was surprisingly difficult to get into blogging again. The blogosphere has moved on so much, and become a question of influencers – which is rather offputting, to be honest.

At the same time, starting the new ONL course is a great excuse for starting it up. Let this be part of the learning blog then.

The course couldn’t be more timely, now that distance education has become mainstream, and also the norm of our times. There are so many nitty-gritty issues we all struggle with, from the actual use of the technology in class to keeping up the interest, to creating a positive learning atmosphere… Luckily, I had a chance to participate in yesterday’s NOFOMA2020 session on SCM distance education in the Nordic countries (and beyond). Thanks, Ola Hultkrantz, for your insights and for moderating the session! It was so nice to compare notes, vent the struggles, but also to pinpoint the positives of our experience! Here are some, in a bit of a random order, from what we heard:

• Breakout channels almost forcing us to “flip the classroom”
• Moving away from exams to more assignments on the go
• Lots of great apps that one can adopt
• Gamification of the experience – including the good old beer game moving online
• The possibility to get guest lecturers from across the world one couldn’t have even dreamt of before
• Being able to read student’s handwriting now that it’s online

Particularly interesting were also the COVID-19 testing approaches across universities, including the dashboard Mike Knemeyer mentioned at his uni in the US.

For a bit more on educational games for online SCM education, see also the lots of comments to this post on twitter, and feel free to comment here, or there : )