Labs

Labs are live practice environments designed to help you build and assess your current skill levels while maintaining your ongoing expertise. Access labs while going through a bootcamp or Aspire Journey or while reading a book to gain hands-on experience.

There are different classes of labs – Practice-type Labs and Challenge Labs:

• Practice-type labs - guided practice; used most in certification channels; you can access as many times as you wish

• Challenge or Skillable (formerly Learn on Demand Systems) labs - three levels to help you increase your proficiency starting with guided practice and hints, to a do-it-yourself challenge used for certification training; you can only access each lab 5 times

Find a lab

You can find labs in multiple ways.

• Search: When using search, you can locate all relevant labs by adding the term, practice lab to any topic, for example, Azure practice lab. You can also filter search results based on Labs under the Type filter.
• Browse library: You may find labs on the Practice tab within channels, and within Aspire Journeys and some bootcamps.
• Practice Labs page: From the left navigation, locate the Practice Labs page. When open, this page displays all labs you are entitled to.

Practice-type labs

There are two practice-type labs.

• Codecademy labs
• Practice IT labs

Codecademy labs

Codecademy has labs on many topics. Learners can have one of three experiences depending on the type of lab they launch:

• A standalone Codecademy-platform-hosted checklist project: Learners complete tasks within the browser interface and check them off as they complete them.
• A standalone Codecademy-platform-hosted Kanban project: Learners complete tasks on the their local machine and drag tasks to the correct project phase as they work through them.
• A Syllabus page experience: Learners read an article and complete the tasks within the article on their own. These are edge-cases that will hopefully become increasingly uncommon.

Find and launch a Codecademy lab

You must be entitled to a collection that contains Codecademy labs in order for you to see them. You find Codecademy labs on the Practice tab of each relevant channel or Aspire journey. They will also be available on the Practice labs page and through Percipio search using the Type filter.

To find Codecademy labs using search:

1. Enter the topic of interest in the search bar and select Search.
2. From the Type filter on the left navigation, select Lab.
3. Scroll through the list of search results until you find the Codecademy lab you want to take and select it. You can distinguish it by Codecademy in the Source field.

   

4. Select Launch. The lab launches.

Practice IT

Practice labs in Percipio support IT certification, work readiness, skill development, and career progression. These Practice labs can mirror almost any hardware or software configuration. By experimenting with live applications, IT professionals can learn and retain valuable skills by interacting with the technology and solutions needed for their jobs. Learners can also get support by accessing expert always-available online content. Practice labs give IT professionals access to popular certification topics, including Microsoft®, CompTIA®, and VMware®.

We recommend that watch the introductory video at the beginning of each lab to learn more about the lab and how to use it.

Find and launch a Practice IT lab

You must be entitled to a collection that contains Practice IT labs in order for you to see them. You find Practice labs on the Practice tab of each relevant channel or Aspire journey. They will also be available on the Practice Labs page and through Percipio search using the Type filter.

The description of these labs normally indicates it's a Practice lab, and when launching it, you will notice that the URL indicates it's hosted on Practice-labs.com.

To find Practice-IT labs using search:

1. Enter the topic of interest in the search bar and select Search.
2. From the Type filter on the left navigation, select Lab.
3. Scroll through the list of search results until you find the Practice IT lab you want to take and select it. You can distinguish it by Practice IT in the Source field. The lab launches in a new browser tab.

   

Frequently Asked Questions about Practice labs

Challenge or Skillable labs

Challenge or Skillable labs are goal-oriented, short-duration, scenario-based, hands-on scored labs. You can effectively learn new technologies by practicing on the labs at your expertise level:

• Getting started
• Guided
• Advanced
• Expert

Learners receive skill development and assessments. Each Challenge lab contains a form of verification so you have a way to measure your success.

When you encounter a Challenge or Skillable lab, you:

• Have only 5 attempts to complete the lab.
• Have to complete the lab in one sitting. Challenge or Skillable labs can’t be paused or saved and resumed at later date.
• Can only launch one lab at a time. You must end one lab before starting another.
• Must complete the tasks to get a completion.
• Can share, like the lab content, and add to them your playlist.

  

Admins can add labs in assignments, custom channels, and custom journeys.

Frequently Asked Questions about Challenge or Skillable labs