Teaching EE circuits I lab with Labview

The teaching of undergraduate EE labs is constantly a concern for those who teach these labs. Several questions must annually be asked: 1) have we reached the point in the academic training of the undergraduates to eliminate the need to actually conduct hands-on lab experiments in favor of computer simulated experiences; 2) are we approaching more and more the opinion that hands-on is a technician´s responsibility vs. “design” being the engineer´s job? 3) is the better solution, a mixture of theory, software and hardware exposure? The intent of this presentation is to discuss the three questions given above and attempt to share some ideas on how question three might specifically be addressed using tools like the PC, IEEE-488 bus, PSpice and Labview