Streamline Training & Documentation: Financial Literacy

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Financial Literacy

I have not been able to access the financial literacy training provided by America's Family, and referenced in a previous post, so I only know the topics it covers:

Dreams, Goals and Attitudes

Saving Money

Record Keeping, Cash Flow and Spending Plans

Love and Money

Raising the [Credit] Score

Give Yourself Credit

Let the Buyer Beware

It's not Just a Car, It's a Statement

The Roof Over Your Head

The End of the Day

Just in Case

Invest in the Future

The titles of the modules have an inviting tone, but I can't gauge how good the training is until I actually browse through the content.

While waiting for an opportunity to do that, I've looked at another financial literacy offering which has a considerably less breezy tone, but, on the plus side, is commendably practical and thorough.

Hands on Banking — available online and on CD-ROM, and offered in Spanish as El futuro en tus manos — was developed by Wells Fargo Bank. In order to be acceptable to a broad range of organizations and audiences, the program has been kept free of commercial content.

There are four versions, each aimed at a different age group:

Children in 4th and 5th grades

Tweens in 6th through 8th grades

Young adults aged 15 to 21

Adults

As a sample of how the program is organized, here are the six topics covered in the Adult version. Each topic is divided into a number of lessons, each lesson being very brief — just a couple of minutes. The Adult units are:

Money in the Bank - The role of banks for individuals and families (7 lessons)

Managing Your Money - How to budget, maintain savings and checking accounts, use an ATM, do banking online (29 lessons)

Borrowing Money - Establishing credit, credit reports, loans, credit cards, wise use of credit (16 lessons)

Buying a Home - Renting vs. owning, closing costs, mortgages, shopping for a home, expenses for maintaining a home (15 lessons)

Planning Your Future - Saving and investing for goals like making a major purchase, paying for children's college, and retiring comfortably (13 lessons)

Establishing a Small Business - Skills needed, getting started and managing for success (21 lessons)

Supplementary information and tools, such as worksheets, checklists, tips, and links to other websites, are collected in a Library. For example, learners can download guidance on shopping for a car, reading a credit report, avoiding common investment mistakes, and creating a customer database for a home business. There is also a dictionary defining financial terms.

The training includes audio narration and closed captioning. The level of interactivity in the Adult version is low, i.e., unlike the other three versions, there are no learning checks or opportunities to provide input other than when using one of the three online calculators (basic calculator; credit calculator, for calculating the cost and/or term of a loan; and earnings calculator, for calculating interest earned on savings).

An extensive teacher's guide is provided for each of the four versions of the course; it is evident that the course designers envisioned the course being used most commonly with a teacher on hand to facilitate learning through discussion and exercises.

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Labels: Learning resources

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