What should a computer lab in the cloud era look like?

First of all, I would like to ask you children's shoes, under what circumstances did you first come into contact with computers?

For many young and new-generation children's shoes, computers are nothing new, and even their growth process cannot be separated from the company of electronic devices such as computers, tablets, and smart phones. Learning, reading, socializing, games, entertainment... all kinds of activities will use it.

However, many "older" children's shoes must still have an impression of the "computer room"! Information class once a week; under the guidance of the teacher, with plastic shoe covers on his feet, he clicked into the well-decorated, clean and tidy room; opened the dust-proof cloth according to the instructions, and turned on the display first in a ritual process , Then turn on the host; the teacher is on the podium "Wang Pang Qingtou Jian Wuyi" (you know what this is the children's shoes are probably already the oldest 🤣), you play cards, minesweeper, or just staring at the "maze" screensaver Can watch for a long time...

Times are different! Computers are no longer a high-tech magical object. They have been widely used in our work, life and study. However, related teaching needs still exist, such as the latest and hottest Python programming, AI, machine learning, and the Internet of Things. Schools or educational institutions still need to provide students with the necessary hands-on practice environment. So, what should a computer lab in the new era look like?

It should allow teachers to automatically deploy the required software teaching and experimental environment with one click according to their teaching needs;
It should allow the teacher to automatically control the turn-on and turn-off time of the student’s experimental computer conveniently and quickly;
It should allow students to directly log in to the pre-configured learning environment in the cloud with their own mailbox;
It should be possible to configure an independent GPU experimental environment for each student to learn Unity, Revit, NLP, ArcGIS, MATLAB and other technologies;
It should help schools quickly build a learning environment for STEM software;
……

The goal is clear, but how to achieve it?

Azure Lab Service, quickly build an experimental environment in the cloud

Practice and hands-on experiments are the best way to learn. But sometimes, the physical distance of the school computer room and the complicated configuration of the experimental environment become obstacles to students' practical operation and learning.

Microsoft's newly launched Azure Lab Service can solve this trouble for everyone, allowing users to easily set up teaching scenes, allowing students to access configured virtual machines on demand, saving teachers and students the time required to configure complex teaching environments. Azure Lab Service provides educational users with a cloud-based environment for teaching on the computer, thereby helping teachers simplify the time and complexity of course configuration, deploying the experimental environment with one click, reducing the need for IT support, and ensuring that students can access through any device lab environment.

Azure Lab Service：
https://azure.microsoft.com/zh-cn/services/lab-services/

Comparison of new and old methods

Compared with the traditional computer room laboratory, Azure Lab Service has the following advantages:

No need for students to go to the laboratory, able to provide laboratory course resources for students in any location and using any equipment
Help teachers easily create laboratory courses and manage classes, reducing the need for IT support
Provide a "packaged" pricing model, simple billing, easy to control the budget
Ability to set the scheduled power-on and turn-off tasks of laboratory resources to achieve higher availability and flexibility
Only pay for the resources used, no charge for shutdown, economical

The service is equally simple to set up and use. Teachers only need to set up a virtual machine on the cloud, and include all the software and files needed for class; then publish the template to Azure Lab, and send the request to the students via email, and then the students can start it in a few minutes And run the experimental environment.

For example, when a teacher needs to release a Lab experiment environment of Python + Jupyter for data science courses, the configuration can be easily completed by following the following process:

By default, the Data Science VM image comes with many data science frameworks required for such classes, and teachers do not need to install them manually. Including Python environment/Jupyter Notebook/Visual Studio Code (IDE), etc.

In addition to data science courses, there are of course a variety of courses that can be met. Whether Adobe software teaching or database management, or even big data analysis, as long as there are relevant teaching needs, they can be easily implemented through Azure Lab Service.

Therefore, in terms of flexibility, simplicity, and efficiency, this is much more convenient than the traditional computer room model:

Prices and charging methods

The price of Azure Lab Service is multiplied by three parts: virtual machine instance size, usage time, and number of students. therefore:

total price = number of students virtual machine instance unit price usage time

Assuming a student needs to use 20 hours of medium-sized virtual machine in a course, then only 1 20 0.42 = 8.2 US dollars per month. Overall, the price of Azure Lab Service is very affordable.

The most important point is: virtual machine is free of charge! (Including hard disk, there is no charge)

For more information on the pricing and charges of this service, please refer to

https://azure.microsoft.com/zh-cn/services/lab-services/#pricing。

Introduction to the interface

Azure Lab Service is very intuitive to use, and provides the same easy-to-use interface for different roles.

IT administrator's perspective:

As an IT administrator, you need to be responsible for granting permissions and setting permissions for virtual machine images. It is necessary to set the role of Lab Creator for each teacher so that the teacher can create a laboratory without an Azure subscription.

Teacher's perspective:

When the teacher is authorized to become a "Lab Creator", he can configure the classroom environment for the students in a simple and intuitive way. Teachers can choose the virtual machine image, size, and duration of each student's use according to their needs.

After the laboratory is created, the teacher can configure the required software and environment inside the virtual machine through the Template option:

In addition, Azure Lab Service also supports teachers to import student lists in batches, send invitations, and set automatic startup/shutdown time according to the course schedule (the course time is not included in the student's use time).

Student perspective:

For students, the operation of Lab Service is also very simple. After receiving the email, students only need to register and log in according to the prompts to enter the laboratory and access their virtual machines.

In addition to the time scheduled for the course, students can also open and use it freely within the specified use time. If you feel that there is not enough time, you need to apply to the teacher for an extension of time before the time runs out.