Lila Rajabion - SUNY Empire State College

Ruifang Hope  Sun - SUNY Empire State College

Using lab activities in the classroom  play an important role in supporting hands-on learning experience by enabling students to gain practical skills through experiments and providing them the chance to have a more detailed understanding of the content. Since the entire MSIT program is online, we needed to find ways to provide the laboratory activities in a virtual environment. Virtual labs can save money, time, and effort. The Virtual Lab is a web-based platform that is designed to improve learning approaches by introducing a safe and interactive lab environment for students in our MSIT program. By using the virtual desktop we promote student learning, inclusive, even if they have a slow computer as well. This found to be a useful, and enjoyable learning environment during our courses. It allowed users to practice either individually or in groups and gain a better understanding of the subject. In our presentation we will discuss two courses such as Computer forensics as well as Database management course. For example, for the computer forensics course, we will build a virtual forensics investigation station. Instead of asking students to install about 6 forensic tools, we provide them a web browser link to access the college Virtual Machines or Virtual Desktop, with pre-installed digital forensics tools. We will provide them with a unified virtual desktop interface, so they can use the virtual lab to complete forensic investigation activities.

Conference Strand: Emerging Technologies

Target Audience: Grades K-12, Post-Secondary