Most practical IT things require doing real-world projects, whether online or for the classroom. The projects are part of the "materials" you have to buy for the courses, just like the books. When I took astronomy online, I had to buy really cool software that figured out where I was physically located (or actually, my computer was :-) and showed me that sky in real time and I had to go out and observe certain things and discuss them (phases of the moon, for example) and photograph/draw them, etc.