Why Upgrade

Be Current
Financials regulations, tax laws, consumer protection laws are constantly changing. With Virtual Business - Personal Finance 2.0, your curriculum is automatically updated to FREE each year to have the most current information possible.

Save Money
The average school using the CD-based Virtual Business - Personal Finance prints over 10,000 pages per year. The new Virtual Business - Personal Finance 2.0 is 100% online and pays for itself in reduced printing and copying costs in under two years. And, Of course, students and parents will appreciate the "greener" approach to our environment.

Document Student Achievement
With Virtual Business - Personal Finance 2.0, you can see and document the achievement of every student at any instant. This lets you identify students needing extra time or differentiated instruction. Separate grades for reading comprehension, math comprehension, and practical application let you zero in on student needs.

Be More Inclusive
With Virtual Business Personal - Finance 2.0, students can access the curriculum at any time from any place. This means students who miss class can make up work, students with special needs can get additional help on their time, and even homebound students with medical issues aren't left out.

Motivate Your Students
Virtual Business - Personal Finance 2.0 offers a unique Certificate of Personal Financial Competency, available only to students who complete all assigned modules satisfactorily. This tangible "take-away" gives your students something to show for their dedication and hard work.

Prepare for the 2012-2013 H&R Block Dollars & Sense Challenge
VBPF is the central curriculum of the H&R Block Dollars & Sense national financial fitness program. Knowledge Matters and H&R Block are working together to create a new generation of financially fit Americans, teens who are ready for whatever the real world throws at them.

LESSONS INCLUDE:
Budgeting & Saving, Choosing & Balancing a Checking Account, Getting a Credit Card, Fixing Your Credit, Education & Advancement, Using Online Banking, Paying Your Taxes, Intro to Investing, Time Management and Health, Finding a Job, Finding an Apartment, Buying a Car, Shopping, Risk vs. Return, Diversification, Investing for Retirement, Buying a Home, and Insurance.

The Educator's Choice
The Virtual Business family of simulations is now in over 5000 schools across the United States. Our simulations are built with educators in mind and are always correlated to state and national standards as well as leading textbooks. Virtual Business is the choice of key players in business, marketing, and economic education including Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, DECA, and FBLA. Virtual Business - Personal Finance has been nominated for a Distinguished Achievement Award by the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP).

Stories

Teacher Gives Virtual Business - Personal Finance A Thumbs-Up!

When the business teacher at our school left, I was given the Personal Finance course to teach. I am a math/computer science teacher with no experience in business or economics, so I knew that teaching this course was going to be a challenge. Then I was offered the chance to use Virtual Business - Personal Finance as part of my curriculum. I needed all the help I could get, so I tried it.

Using Virtual Business - Personal Finance turned out to be the highlight of the class for all of my students, regardless of gender, academic level or interest in personal finance. Not only did the students get excited about its game like atmosphere, they became energized about learning the financial concepts contained in the simulation. My students got a feel of the emotions one might experience if a diploma was earned, or a promotion was granted, or a fined levied for late payment of taxes, or if their apartment was robbed - all from the safety of the computer lab.

Virtual Business - Personal Finance is self-contained and let my students learn by experience. My lack of knowledge in the personal finance area did not hold my students back from putting together a significant body of financial knowledge to apply to their own lives. Making the decision to use Virtual Business - Personal Finance, as a part of my class, was essential in helping me reach my own goals. I wanted to offer an experience in class that would make my students aware of how to manage their own financial lives. I also wanted the class to be a pleasant experience so that they would continue to think about the concepts we had explored.

Virtual Business - Personal Finance gets a thumbs-up from me, and every student in the class!

Susan Barocas, Math/Computer Science Teacher, Northampton High School, Massachusetts



Virtual Business - Personal Finance Provides Necessary Life Skills For Students!

If you find that your students are just plain bored, and you just can not get any participation, well folks it time to change your methods and meet the needs of the electronic generation. Knowledge Matters Inc. has turned my computer lab into a Virtual Reality lab. Education as we have known it for the last few generations is fast becoming a dinosaur. Change is inevitable and Virtual Business simulations from Knowledge Matters Inc. are at the forefront of change. Just like Crosby, Stills, and Nash sang, "Teach Your Children Well...The past is just a goodbye." Don't get locked in the past; join the future. This is exactly what Virtual Business Personal Finance is doing for my students.

My name is John Prchal, and I am a Marketing Ed. and Business Computer Information Systems instructor at Harrell Accelerated Learning Center. HALC is an alternative campus, which focuses on credit recovery and dropout prevention for the Wichita Falls Independent School District in Wichita Falls, Texas. Our campus is an open-entry open-exit school that emphasizes self-paced instruction in an accelerated format.

Since students enter and graduate at various times, no one student is engaged with the same activity as any other student. For several years I was searching for software based marketing education, which would provide self-paced learning for my students. Four years ago I found the perfect solution when I received a brochure from Knowledge Matters Inc. I started with Virtual Business Management 1.0 and Retailing 1.0. I then added Virtual Business Sports 1.0 and Virtual Business Management 2.0.

The big question was how would students react to the software. Are you serious!!! They absolutely enjoy the simulations. The most common reaction is, "I did not believe I would like something in school and enjoy learning". What makes the simulations a success is direct student interaction with the software. Still something was missing. At staff development meetings, employers were constantly remarking that students entering the work force had limited knowledge of life skills. This was soon to change.

When Knowledge Matters introduced Virtual Business Personal Finance, I knew this simulation was a winner and would provide necessary life skills for students. Taxes, insurance, on-line banking, time management, find an apartment, lets buy a car, lets buy a condo, find a job, continue your education for a better job...get the idea!!! The students do!!! Student comments abound, but one comment hit me with a stark sense of reality. In February of 2008, a student just finished marketing and would graduate in a few days. She was living in the Children's Home of Wichita County. She told me Virtual Business Personal Finance did more for her in school than anything else. She would be moving to San Antonio in a few days, and the simulation was the best preparation she could every experience for her new life.

I have looked at competitors marketing education simulations from both sides now, from up and down and still somehow (sorry Judy Collins) they lack the sophistication and challenge that Knowledge Matters Inc. simulations provide for students. If you don't want mutiny from stern to bow (sorry Bob Dylan) in your classroom, forget the past and join the future of education. Thanks to Knowledge Matters Inc., my students enjoy the best tool to help kids. And after all is said and done, that's our job...to help kids, and Knowledge Matters has made this possible.

John Prchal, Marketing Ed. and Business Computer Information Systems instructor, Wichita Falls Independent School District, Wichita Falls, Texas.

Standards

Grading

Virtual Business - Personal Finance comes with a complete suite of teaching tools designed specifically for high schools. The assignments and projects are all online, allowing for extensive student tracking. Students' progress and grades may be easily monitored online by the instructor. There are even charts and reports to help compare a student's progress to other students within his/her class.

There are also plenty of assessment tools to make sure you and your students understand how they are doing. Students are quizzed as they proceed through all assignments and projects, and are automatically graded. The hands-on portion of the simulation is also auto-graded. The students' grades may be seen inside the simulation, so students know how they are doing. All students' grades may be viewed online by the instructor. There is even an actions journal that logs every action and decision that a student has made, with a timestamp.

Teaching Tools Include:

• Student Tutorial
• Step-by-Step Student Instructions
• Topic Focused Lessons and Projects
• Student Grade and Progress Tracking
• Detailed Student Comparison Charts
• Certificates of Completion

• Built in Reading and Math Quizzes
• Over 100 Pages of Content
• Auto Grading of Student Simulations and Quizzes
• Student Actions Journal
• Student Grade and Progress Tracking
• Exportable Grading Information for use in Learning Management Systems

FREE Demo

In this trial assignment you will explore how to improve your credit score. You will begin by reviewing a credit report and identifying problems. Then you will try to buy a car and experience the difficulties created by poor credit. Next, you will begin to improve your credit score by paying off several overdue bills and by using a credit card responsibly. Please review the Student Pre-Reading before starting the assignment.

Click to Start Assignment

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