Hands-On Lab Projects in an Online IT Course: Virtualization or Simulation?

I was glad to see this session in light of all of the discussions swirling around about labs for IST 220. There is a hand out that the bottom of the session info about different simulation and virtualization tools that may be good to investigate further.

Jeff Tjiputra, the presenter, did a good job of laying out the pluses and minuses from each approach, sim or virt. One of the items of note for simulations is that it isn’t a real and; therefore, impossible to “screw up.” It’s important to provide students a context for real-world activities that allow for failure and resolution that leads to growth. Virtualization allows for this, but it may be cost prohibitive, especially since it usually requires tech support from the company that is deploying the environment.