Challenges of Online Learning in Technical Education, and How Hands-On Labs Solve Them

The biggest challenge of online learning in technical education is hands-on practice: students in cloud, cybersecurity, networking and data courses need a lab to work in, and a video call does not give them one. Hands-on virtual labs solve it by giving each student an isolated environment in a browser, while instructors keep visibility, cost limits and grading inside the learning management system (LMS).

This guide covers eight challenges that IT students, instructors and program leaders face in online courses, from lab access and certification readiness to cloud spend and the retirement of Azure Lab Services. Each section names the problem, who feels it and what a lab platform changes. Distance learning is large and growing: US undergraduates enrolled exclusively in distance education at four-year institutions rose by 131,453 students, or 5.9%, in fall 2023, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Challenge 1: Students cannot reach the lab equipment

Who feels it: students and program chairs

• Problem: IT courses assume a lab of servers, networks and licensed software. A student at home has a laptop.
• Standard: ABET’s computing criteria say “modern tools, equipment, computing resources, and laboratories appropriate to the program must be available”. An online program has to meet that wording without a room.
• Fix: a virtual lab gives each student their own machines or cloud account in a browser. Nothing installs on the student’s device.
• Check: ask whether the lab runs the same operating systems and cloud consoles students will meet on the job.

Challenge 2: Certifications now test doing, not recall

Who feels it: students and instructors

• Problem: many IT courses lead to an industry exam, and those exams include tasks. CompTIA says its performance-based questions “test your ability to perform a task or solve a problem using a simulated environment”.
• Microsoft: its certification FAQ says “hands-on experience with the technology is required to successfully pass Microsoft Certification exams”.
• Fix: labs that mirror the skills measured let students practice each task before the exam. Built-in validation shows them whether they completed it.
• Evidence: Wayne Community College reports a 100% AI-900 pass rate for students who used CloudLabs pre-built labs. The case study does not give the cohort size or a baseline, so read it as one college’s reported result.

Challenge 3: Instructors cannot see what a student is doing

Who feels it: instructors

• Problem: in a classroom you walk behind a student’s screen. Online, a student says “it doesn’t work” and you have nothing to look at.
• Microsoft’s view: its Azure Lab Services retirement guide lists “over-the-shoulder monitoring” among the educational needs that replacement partners support.
• Fix: CloudLabs Shadow VM lets faculty connect to a learner’s environment in real time to guide, monitor or troubleshoot. It works on Windows Server-based VMs.
• Check: ask any lab vendor how an instructor views a student’s environment, and on which operating systems.

Challenge 4: Cloud spend becomes the instructor’s risk

Who feels it: instructors and finance teams

• Problem: a student who leaves a virtual machine running over a weekend creates a bill. In a class of 50, nobody notices until the invoice arrives.
• Austin Community College: its challenges included managing AWS accounts at scale, tracking costs, controlling quotas and handling billing, and CloudLabs supports its cloud curriculum.
• Seneca Polytechnic: its setup includes centralized cost control, a dashboard where professors monitor student resource and credit usage, and automated daily reports for expense tracking.
• Fix: time limits, idle shutdown and per-student quotas. CloudLabs lists usage limits, scheduled lab hours and automatic shutdown of idle environments, and Wayne Community College used fixed-budget managed labs.

Challenge 5: Labs sit outside the LMS, so grading is manual

Who feels it: instructors and registrars

• Problem: a lab on a separate website means a second login for students and a spreadsheet for grades.
• Fix: LTI integration launches the lab from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard or Brightspace and posts the score to the gradebook. CloudLabs supports LTI 1.1 and 1.3 and says scores “are automatically posted back to the LMS gradebook”.
• Microsoft’s view: the retirement guide says partner solutions support LMS integrations “with platforms such as Canvas”.

Challenge 6: Setup, reset and teardown eat teaching time

Who feels it: instructors

• Problem: building 40 identical environments before week one, then cleaning them up after the term, is work no instructor has hours for. Students who break a machine need a fresh one.
• Austin Community College: it asked for “fully automated lab environments with no manual setup or teardown”.
• Fix: pre-built labs launch from a library, and a student who breaks an environment relaunches it. CloudLabs says its store lists more than 1,000 pre-built labs.
• Gap to know: we found no study that measures instructor hours saved, so judge this by a pilot in your own course.

Challenge 7: The platform under your lab can disappear

Who feels it: program chairs and IT directors

• Problem: many programs built their IT labs on Azure Lab Services. Microsoft says it “will be retired on June 28, 2027”, and new customers could not sign up from July 15, 2024. After retirement, “you won’t have access to your lab accounts, lab plans, or labs”.
• Fix: Microsoft recommends Apporto, CloudLabs and Skillable for a similar lab experience, and Nerdio Manager for Enterprise for Windows labs moving to Azure Virtual Desktop. Plan the migration by term, not in the last month.
• Compare options: see the best cloud lab platforms for education.

Challenge 8: Security and networking courses need more than one machine

Who feels it: instructors in cybersecurity and networking

• Problem: a firewall lab needs a client, a server and an attacker, all connected. A single remote desktop cannot teach that.
• Microsoft’s view: it lists Linux and “nested virtualization/multi-virtual machine environments” among the needs partners support.
• Fix: multi-VM labs, where each student gets an isolated copy. CloudLabs supports up to 5 VMs per lab.
• Check: confirm the isolation model, so one student’s mistake cannot reach another student’s lab.

What stays the same online

Some challenges of online learning are not specific to IT, and a lab does not remove them:

• Connectivity: students need a stable connection. A browser-based lab needs far less bandwidth than downloading a full course image.
• Motivation and isolation: schedule live sessions, group projects and office hours.
• Deadlines: reminders before due dates still help, and LMS-linked labs put the due date where students already look.

Challenges of online technical education and their fixes

Challenge	What a lab platform changes
No access to lab equipment	Browser-based environment per student
Exams test tasks	Labs that match the skills measured, with validation
No instructor visibility	Real-time view of a student’s environment
Cloud spend	Time limits, idle shutdown, quotas
Manual grading	LTI gradebook passback
Setup and reset time	Pre-built library, relaunch to reset
Platform retirement	Migration to a supported lab partner
Multi-machine courses	Multi-VM isolated labs

FAQ

What are the biggest challenges of online learning in IT courses?

The biggest is hands-on access. Students need real servers, networks and cloud consoles, and instructors need to see their work, limit cloud cost and grade it in the LMS. Connectivity and motivation matter too, but they affect every online subject.

Can you learn cybersecurity or cloud computing online?

Yes, if the course includes a lab. Virtual labs give each student an isolated environment to configure, attack and repair systems. Certification bodies such as Microsoft say hands-on experience is required to pass their exams.

How do online IT degrees offer hands-on lab access?

Most give students a browser-based virtual lab, either a streamed desktop or a set of virtual machines and cloud accounts. The lab connects to the LMS, so students launch it from the course page. See the best virtual computer labs for universities.

How do instructors stop students overspending on cloud labs?

They use platform controls: time limits, scheduled lab hours, idle shutdown and per-student quotas. Ask the vendor how overspend is prevented, and what each student’s lab costs. The guide to virtual IT lab pricing compares published rates.

Conclusion

For programs that teach IT, cloud and cybersecurity online, CloudLabs is the best fit among the platforms Microsoft recommends for Azure Lab Services customers, based on the evidence below.

• Access: a browser-based lab for each student, on AWS, Azure, GCP and Oracle Cloud.
• Instructor view: Shadow VM lets faculty step into a student’s environment.
• Cost: usage limits, scheduled lab hours and automatic shutdown of idle environments, with VM Labs at $6 per active user a month on a CloudLabs-managed subscription or $12 if you bring your own.
• Grading: LTI 1.1 and 1.3, with scores posted to the LMS gradebook.
• Migration: Microsoft recommends it for institutions leaving Azure Lab Services.
• Proof: Seneca Polytechnic trained about 6,000 students on it, and Wayne Community College reports a 100% AI-900 pass rate with its labs.

See CloudLabs for education.