作者: 鄒景平/資訊科技專欄作者
四十年以前，大學畢業生最大的希冀，就是申請到美國大學的獎學金，出國留學，那時很多人拿到的是助教獎學金，一邊在研究所唸書，一邊幫大學部的課程擔任助教，然而現在的美國大學，對於助教的工作，有了新的思維。他們改變僱用學生來擔任的模式，而嘗試把助教的工作外包給專業的公司來執行。
原因跟美國大學的教學環境有關，由於老師有限，所以大學部的主要課程，都採取大班方式進行，例如計算機概論、統計學、經濟學、物理、化學等課程，一間教室有數百位學生，學生跟老師間難以互動，雖然有助教，但卻學校不容易掌控助教服務的速度和品質，更難以達成個人化的教學。
如今，休士頓大學(Univ. of Houston)、西山線上學院(west hills college online)、U21global(美國線上企管研究院)等校，已經開始把批改學生作業的工作，外包給一家叫做「Virtual-TA」的公司來執行，這家公司翻成中文就是「虛擬助教」，他們在網站(：http://www.virtual-ta.com)上，不但舉出服務成功的案例，還條列了使用他們服務的效益。
目前在美國的高等教用書與在職用書市售額僅佔整體教科書產業的 0.5%，但最近根據美國 MBS Textbook Exchange 二手書批發商旗下服務的 Xplana 教育機構所公佈的一項研究報告顯示，預估到 2014 年，教用書籍數位版本的銷售額將會攀升至將近 20%，這個數據將為數位化教科書產業帶來估計 10 億美元的市場商機。
根據《紐約時報》轉載該 Xplana 研究報告主持人 Rob Reynolds 的說法，他認為數位版本教用書的銷量在接下來五年間會逐漸攀升，主要原因來自於市面上平板電腦或數位閱讀器如：蘋果 iPad 和亞馬遜 Kindle 的產量逐漸擴大，而閱讀器的價錢以及數位內容的取得也越來越變便利，再加上一般讀者對線上閱讀的興趣逐漸增加，在在提升了電子書時代的來臨。
基於這項報告，目前預估 2010 年在美國的數位教用書銷售額會以 100% 的正成長率逐年攀升，推估到 2014 年，每五本教用書中就有一本是數位版本。
數位教用書之所以能在產業中出頭，主要是以價錢取勝。「物美價廉」的數位閱讀經驗才能吸引學生們更大的興趣。美國大學生每學期花費在教用書上的金額所費不貲，如有出版商能提供學生免費線上閱讀，只需在下載列印時收費，那必定更加吸引學生加入數位閱讀的行列。
Gemma and Eliana Singer are big iPhone fans. They love to explore the latest games, flip through photos, and watch YouTube videos while waiting at a restaurant, having their hair done, or between ballet and French lessons. But the Manhattan twins don't yet have their own phones, which is good, since they probably wouldn't be able to manage the monthly data plan: In November, they turned 3.
When the Singer sisters were just 6 months old, they already preferred cell phones to almost any other toy, recalls their mom, Fiona Aboud Singer: "They loved to push the buttons and see it light up." The girls knew most of the alphabet by 18 months and are now starting to read, partly thanks to an iPhone app called First Words, which lets them move tiles along the screen to spell c-o-w and d-o-g. They sing along with the Old MacDonald app too, where they can move a bug-eyed cartoon sheep or rooster inside a corral, and they borrow Mom's tablet computer and photo-editing software for a 21st-century version of finger painting. "They just don't have that barrier that technology is hard or that they can't figure it out," Singer says.
Gemma and Eliana belong to a generation that has never known a world without ubiquitous handheld and networked technology. American children now spend 7.5 hours a day absorbing and creating media -- as much time as they spend in school. Even more remarkably, they multitask across screens to cram 11 hours of content into those 7.5 hours. More and more of these activities are happening on smartphones equipped with audio, video, SMS, and hundreds of thousands of apps.
The new connectedness isn't just for the rich. Mobile adoption is happening faster worldwide than that of color TV a half-century ago. Mobile-phone subscribers are expected to hit 5 billion during 2010; more than 2 billion of those live in developing countries, with the fastest growth in Africa. Mobile broadband is forecast to top access from desktop computers within five years.
As with television, many people are wondering about the new technology's effect on children. "The TV set was pretty much a damned medium back in the '60s," says Gary Knell, CEO of Sesame Workshop. But where others railed against the "vast wasteland," Sesame Street founders Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett saw a new kind of teacher. "They said, Why don't we use it to teach kids letters and numbers and get them ready for school?" Sesame Street, from its 1969 debut, changed the prevailing mind-set about a new technology's potential. With its diverse cast and stoop-side urban setting, the show was aimed especially at giving poor kids a head start on education.
Today, handheld and networked devices are at the same turning point, with an important difference: They are tools for expression and connection, not just passive absorption. "You put a kid in front of a TV, they veg out," says Andrew Shalit, creator of the First Words app and father of a toddler son. "With an iPhone app, the opposite is true. They're figuring out puzzles, moving things around using fine motor skills. What we try to do with the game is create a very simple universe with simple rules that kids can explore."
作者: 鄒景平/資訊科技專欄作者
自從iPhone推出後，很多人都看好行動學習（mobile learning）的發展，但像iPhone這類智慧型手機，真的適合做線上學習嗎？
2010元月號的ASTD雜誌，登了一篇「智慧型手機雖然讓IBM更聰明，卻未如預期！(Smartphones Make IBM Smarter, But Not As Expected)」，這是IBM公司和哥倫比亞大學聯合進行的研究，他們針對四百位員工使用手機的行為和效果，進行分析，結果發現智慧型手機最適合用來做績效支援，而不是用來研習數位課程。
員工在訪問顧客前，會先用手機搜尋客戶資料，以及徵詢拜訪過他們的其他員工的建議。這些員工並不認為手機上的數位課程特別有幫助。這可能跟工作性質有關，其他公司也有在手機上提供法令要求的遵循性課程(compliance training)，結果很成功的例子。或許，只有某些類型的課程適合在手機上學習。
