Abstract
The need for students to have hands-on experience is very important in many disciplines to match the requirements of today’s dynamic job market. Informatics, which is the science of information engineering, has been recently integrated into many academic programs. Teaching students the main skills in modern software and web development is essential for them to be successful informatics professionals. For any informatics program, students engage in working on projects as essential parts for some courses in their academic programs. This paper presents the development and evaluation of MiLAB (My Mobile Informatics Lab), a portable virtual lab environment for the teaching and learning of modern web development skills. MiLAB has been integrated into an undergraduate health informatics academic program to improve the teaching and learning of essential web development skills, such as databases management and customization of modern content management systems. The evaluation of MiLAB indicated that it served as an interactive personal environment for students to implement, collaborate, and present their web development projects. Strengths, weaknesses and possible improvements are also discussed.
Highlights
It is essential for undergraduate informatics academic programs to include hands-on experience in order to prepare students for the real world jobs
Academic institutions rely on physical computer labs that are equipped with essential software to teach students various skills on computing and informatics
Simulation and virtualization tools provide effective and alternative approaches to help students gain essential informatics skills without the need to be in a physical computer lab [1]
Summary
It is essential for undergraduate informatics academic programs to include hands-on experience in order to prepare students for the real world jobs. Academic institutions rely on physical computer labs that are equipped with essential software to teach students various skills on computing and informatics. Simulation and virtualization tools provide effective and alternative approaches to help students gain essential informatics skills without the need to be in a physical computer lab [1]. This technology is not widely implemented by educators due to the difficulties associated with the integration into the learning environment [2]. One of the key success factors for the use of simulations in education is the integration of these simulations into the traditional teaching and learning environment.
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