Winter 2009 Educator Conference IT Workshops Lessons Learned

Winter 2009 Educator Conference Winter 2009 Educator Conference IT Workshops: Lessons Learned 1:30-2:20 PM Friday, January 9, 2009

Terry Pasley, Co-PI Kentucky Information Technology Center KCTCS-Maysville Community & Technical College

John Vos, Co-PI Kentucky Information Technology Center KCTCS-West Kentucky Community & Technical College

Kentucky Information Technology Center Increasing Information Technology (IT) enrollment and completion rates of students in two-year colleges Increasing Information Technology (IT) enrollment and completion rates of students in two-year colleges Implementing an industry-driven IT curriculum Implementing an industry-driven IT curriculum Providing professional development for high school and two- year college faculty using a physical facility, a virtual center, and mobile centers to provide workshops Providing professional development for high school and two- year college faculty using a physical facility, a virtual center, and mobile centers to provide workshops Increasing support and participation of business, government, and industry Increasing support and participation of business, government, and industry KY Com and Tech Colleges, Lexington Com Col Darrell Abney Award: $2,750,000 (July 2001 to June 2005) $1,3000,000 (August 2005 to July 2008) DUE ATE Regional Center

Kentucky Community & Technical College System Ashland Big Sandy Hazard Maysville Gateway Jefferson Bowling Green Henderson Hopkinsville Somerset Elizabethtown Southeast Owensboro Bluegrass West Kentucky 16 Colleges 67 Campuses

 86,475 credit-seeking full or part-time students  200,000 community and economic development students  600 Credit Program Options  4,000 full-time faculty and staff KCTCS Facts

Distance Learning Like everybody else, KCTCS has experienced a tremendous rise in the number and variety of distance learning classes Because of the technical expertise of the faculty involved, the IT Program was expected and encouraged to take the lead in putting the entire program online

“The” Problem How to provide a quality lab experience to those students taking online IT courses Many IT courses are heavily dependent on lab exercises Many (if not most) of our students learn more in a hands-on situation

Conventional Solution Have the student install the software at home Issues with this solution:  Technical expertise of the student  Hardware requirements  Licensing  Large data files  A consistent environment  Specialized equipment

Technical Expertise Issues A student is expecting to install the software used in the class at the beginning of the class This installation/configuration is sometimes trivial, but often is quite complicated Several weeks can be spent working out all the installation issues, leading to much stress and the student getting behind

Hardware Issues Often the student’s home PC simply isn’t adequate to run the necessary software, or run it adequately Many classes use virtual machines (networking and security, for example) that require a lot of memory (2GBytes, for example)

“Environment” Issues Since you the instructor can’t control the installation and the hardware on the student’s home PC, you have no control over the lab environment This makes it very hard to develop lab exercises that every student can perform

Licensing Issues “Professional” software usually is licensed such that you really can’t give each student a copy The alternative is to use versions of the software with lesser capabilities (“demo versions”), or to use whatever software you can get for free In other words, licensing issues can influence the selection of the software used, and so influence the way the class is taught

Large data files Some classes require the creation of large data files, database classes for example In some cases many files are created How does the student submit these files for grading?

Specialized Equipment Some classes require specialized equipment not available to the student at home Examples: routers, switches, firewalls

The Solution Make your lab computers available to your online students Benefits:  You control the environment  You control the software  You can easily troubleshoot problems  Students get a much better experience (better hardware, better software, fewer problems)

What can a student do in a remote lab? Connect to a server and run an application directly Connect to a server a start one or more virtual machines Connect to a server and configure external equipment, such as a router (using virtual machines to test the configuration) Connect directly to equipment other than a server

The “Low Budget” Approach

Technologies used in the “budget” approach A server with two network interface cards, using Microsoft VPN software Connections to lab servers are made with Remote Desktop  Client comes with XP and Vista  Each Microsoft server allows two administrative connections Virtual machines are either VMware (academic program available) or Microsoft Virtual PC (free)

Survey says …. 12. In general, I think that remote labs contribute positively to student learning. 67.5% Strongly agree 25% Agree 2.5% Disagree 5% Strongly disagree n=40 Spring 2008 survey, other semesters similar

Survey says …. 14. I would like to take additional courses/workshps involving remote labs. 52.5% Strongly agree 35% Agree 7.5% Disagree 5% Strongly disagree n=40

Survey says …. 16. How often did you experience difficulties with the following during the course/workshop? Connecting to the course/workshop site. 32.5% Never 47.5% Rarely 17.5% Sometimes 2.5% Frequently n=40

Survey results can be found at: This site has the complete survey, with results and student comments There are several semesters results available (Fall 2008 is not tabulated yet)

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