2008 - Marketing Educators' Association

E-LEARNING: AN INNOVATIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR MARKETING EDUCATORS
Elizabeth B. Amaranto, and Theresita V. Atienza, Polytechnic University of the Philippines,
Sta. Mesa, Manila, Philippines; purple_elise528@yahoo.com, tva_pup@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
Of paramount importance for marketing educators
today is how to best equip students to succeed in
this knowledge-based society. There is a compelling
need to articulate a cohesive, collective vision for
education through a framework for action that deals
with the complex challenges of accelerating
technological change, rapidly accumulating
knowledge, mounting global competition and
expanding workforce capabilities. This paper
focuses on e-learning as an innovative means of
delivering responsive education to marketers of the
future. The possibility of this evolving to mobile
learning is likewise envisioned.
INTRODUCTION
Today’s economy places value on broad knowledge
and skills, flexibility, cross-training, multi-tasking,
teaming, problem solving and project-based work.
Successful businesses are looking for employees
who can adapt to changing needs, juggle multiple
responsibilities and routinely make decisions on their
own. Workers must be equipped not only with
technical know-how but also with the ability to
create, analyze and transform information and
interact effectively with others. Learning will
increasingly be a lifelong activity.
The explosion of powerful technology has altered
traditional practices not only in workplaces but in
homes as well. It is not only businesses that demand
dramatically different sets of skills. Rapidly evolving
technologies have made new skills a requirement for
success in everyday life. Effectively managing
personal affairs, from shopping for household
products to selecting health care providers to
making financial decisions, often requires people to
acquire new knowledge from a variety of media, use
different types of technologies and process complex
information.
In a knowledge-based economy, citizens need to be
better educated to fill new jobs and more flexible to
respond to the changing knowledge and skill
requirements of existing jobs. Lifelong skills
development must become one of the central pillars
of the new economy. A recent study indicated that
the narrow job skills that most employees learn
today will be obsolete within three to five years.
Workers need to become lifelong learners with the
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capacity to update their knowledge and skills
continually and independently.
Technology and advanced communications have
transformed the world into a global community, with
business associates and competitors as likely to be
in Asia as in America (Achenbach, 1999). Also,
horizontal organizations in competitive businesses
require employees to make business decisions, work
productively in teams, and communicate directly with
customers. This being the environment, employers
value job candidates who can acquire new
knowledge, learn new technologies, rapidly process
information, make decisions and communicate in a
global and diverse society.
Education that prepares students for learning in this
digital society will be more meaningful and more
effective in preparing students for the future.
Students who have access to technology outside of
school will find schools without access to and
integration of technology into their coursework to be
antiquated and irrelevant to their world. Students
without access at school or at home may find
themselves on the periphery of the knowledgebased
society.
The scenario remains that there is a profound gap
between the knowledge and skills most students
learn in school and the knowledge and skills
required in the typical 21 st century communities and
workplaces. It must be recognized that a country’s
vitality, economic viability, business competitiveness,
and personal quality of life depend on a wellprepared
populace and workforce. Education
provides the bedrock from which our national and
individual prosperity ascend together.
Thus, of paramount importance for educators today
is how to best equip students to succeed in this
knowledge-based society. There is a compelling
need to articulate a cohesive, collective vision for
education through a framework for action that deals
with the complex challenges of accelerating
technological change, rapidly accumulating
knowledge, mounting global competition and
expanding workforce capabilities.
Marketing and Marketing Education
Marketing education should be like marketing itself.
It should be dynamic, ever-new, and ever-changing.
Marketing is currently experiencing a wave of