The following is a capstone project completed at the end of a 100% online course. If you think online training courses are poor quality, think again. Read more in detail below.

This article is for two specific people.

1. Students that are interested in learning exactly how to design Net Zero Energy homes and want to see what other students have accomplished in this class. If you want to read more about the class or sign up, click here to read how you can learn how to design zero energy homes.

2. Professionals that are interested in utilizing online training tools to increase the quality of training, verify learning, and decreasing training costs, and want to see what other experts and associations have done.  If you’re an expert like Marc, or would like to learn how Marc created his online training course, I have a few resources for you. First, download Marc’s course syllabus to see how he outlined his course. Second, download our online education playbook. Third, sign up for our technical trainer boot camp and learn how to build your own course in 4 weeks or less.

The above home is a Net Zero Energy Home design and energy model that was completed in Marc Rosenbaum’s Net Zero Energy Home Course in NESEA’s BE Master Series.

The Myth – Online Training Courses Are Poor Quality

There’s a long time myth that online training courses are lower quality than face to face training. We have found this to be untrue, and we have the proof that we’re going to share with you.

In fact, what we’re going to show you is that in many instances that quality of online training makes possible, what is 100% impossible with traditional face to face training.

Now, I’m not saying the face-to-face training is poor quality and is not longer needed. There are specific applications when it is the best, and amazing trainers can do a great job. The purpose of this article is to show that the assumption that face-to-face training is always, hands down better than online training is incorrect.

When is online just better than face to face training?

For professional training when the students are motivated and self-selecting to learn a new skill. Also, professionals tends to have less time to travel and don’t have 2 to 3 weeks to take off from work, or spend 1 to 2 nights in a class for 6 months learning a subject.
Need to learn the material quickly and verify that they’ve learned it
The topic is extremely technical and it requires hard skills. Topics that hands-on, by definition cannot be done online, and soft skills training where direct face-to-face role playing are also impossible.

Here’s the proof – Students Capstone Projects

Let’s review what these are, at the end of a 6 week course students submit full energy models and home designs for a net zero energy home. The instructor Marc, reviews all of of them and provides feedback if the designs or models need to be tweaked at all. The students can domonstrately show that they leave the class with a skill that they developed in the course. They want into the class not knowing how to design these homes, and they walk out of it with a fully designed home, an energy model to prove it’s net zero status and all of the tools, strategies, and knowledge they need complete this work over and over again.

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