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New Facebook Page / EIFLE Award

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I'm combining up this week's blog post. First, well... we won the 2010 EIFLE Financial Literacy Curricula Award! We'll have more information for you about the award in a few weeks – the awards will be officially presented on October 6 in Boston. We're also announcing our new, teacher-oriented Facebook page! We invite you to participate in this new experiment:

See what other Banzai teachers are up to: find out how other teachers are using Banzai in the classroom.
Share your experiences. Other teachers need your thoughts and insights to make Banzai a better experience for their students.
Give us a grade. Let us know what you like, and don't like, about Banzai. Your feedback drives the progress of our financial literacy program.

Click here to check out the new, Banzai Facebook page.

Getting the Most Out of Banzai's Assessments

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

We've posted a new topic on the Facebook discussion board about "Getting the Most Out of Banzai's Assessments". We've offered our findings, and some of our ideas. Click here to read the discussion and join in on the conversation. We'd love your feedback.

Banzai Is Growing

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

As we conclude Banzai's fourth semester, available for free to teachers and students, we'd like to share with you a picture of Banzai's nationwide growth. The program, on average, is growing at the rate of 10% each month! Banzai is now found in over 1,300 schools in all fifty states.

And this is only the beginning. We're planning a whole suite of advancements and feature upgrades for the coming year – to be revealed in coming months – and we'll be ramping up nationwide outreach. Look forward to meeting a community of teachers using Banzai like you.

Help us with EIFLE Financial Literacy Awards

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

We're looking for a little of your help to nominate Banzai for the EIFLE Financial Literacy awards. We're doing our best to make the program work for you, for free. Your recognition and the support of others makes that possible.

If you've used Banzai, and you love the program, and you'd like to nominate Banzai for the EIFLE Financial Literacy award, reply back to me. We'll cover the fee, and we'll help you fill out the short application.

Running Balances

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

It's a small addition, but it has big results. We've provided you with the Scenario Overview for Life Scenarios, but many of you asked for a way to follow along as your students worked, checking their balances as they work. So we added the ability to view your students' running balances in the Teacher's Assistant.

As your students progress through Life Scenarios, transaction by transaction, Banzai will keep a record of your students' balance at each step. If a student encounters a problem, and can't find where he or she lost the way, simply refer to your Scenario Overview and their running balances. The overview will tell you what your student's balance should have been at a given point, and the running balance will show you what the student's really is now.

Shocking Facts About Your Students

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Pretests from students around the country using Banzai are pouring in. We've been anxious to discover what your students knew, and didn't know, about adult finance before they used Banzai's Life Scenarios – and the results are fascinating! Let me share some of our findings:

41% of students were unable to correctly describe a credit card. Wow!
37% of students had no idea what it meant to overdraft an account! Students who completed Banzai improved dramatically.
44% of students didn't know what a check register is. Is this even an issue anymore? Aren't we all moving to online bank statements anyway? Thoughts?
48% of students struggled to understand that banks must first clear checks before their money is available. Students having used Banzai improved by an average of 15% in posttests.

Stay posted, we'll be sharing the full extent of our posttest results soon. Clearly these are simple financial dilemmas that every person eventually confronts. Who doesn't overdraft a check at least once? As the world quickly moves to debit-only transactions for checking accounts, and banks loosen their overdraft restrictions, problems like these will compound. I was amazed by the number of students who didn't know that a credit card is a debt obligation, and that credit cards incur interest for failure to pay the balance in full.

Most people learn these lessons eventually, one way or another. For us at Banzai we believe financial responsibility is first behavioral, then knowledge-based. The question: "Can you actually afford to buy this or that?" is even more valuable than defining "check register". Banzai addresses both of these issues, focusing your students on their money, and their lives.

Assess your students' knowledge with Banzai

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday we launched Banzai's new "Assessment" tab! You now have the ability to administer a pretest as well as a posttest to each of your students.

When they complete the tests, their results will be displayed within the "Teacher's Assistant", in the same place you view their transactions. Let us know what you think! We'd love to hear your ideas for making the assessment features even more useful to you.

Curriculum Alignment for VA, UT, and IA

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Fantastic news! Well, at least there's good news for the following states: Virginia, Utah, and Iowa. We've gone through the effort to align your individual states' curriculum with Banzai's Life Scenarios. As you consider which SOLs you'll be covering with Banzai, simply scan your state's curriculum document and see which Life Scenarios apply.

Click here to download your state's alignment document.

And, if you still don't see your state's individual alignment document, hold fast – we're working on them. You can still download Banzai's Content Outline for generic financial literacy alignment.

Curriculum Alignment

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Here's a little exciting news for you...we've begun the initiative of offering state-specific curriculum alignment for Banzai. This month, we've released Banzai's Content Outline, which will help you align Banzai generally to your individual class, however, watch out for your state-specific alignment guides in the coming months. In March we'll be releasing guides for Virginia, Utah, and Iowa.

For more information on curriculum alignment, or to download the Content Outline, click here.

Life Scenarios are on the way!

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

With the generous support of non-profit institutions in your communities, we've shipped thousands of Life Scenarios to teachers across the country! Once again, it was your feedback that helped us see the need for printed materials in the classroom.

When we first offered printed Life Scenarios, halfway through the Fall semester, your response was absolutely overwhelming. If you have not yet received Life Scenarios for your classes, please be patient. We're working as hard as we can to get them to you!

No email address required!

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Banzai now accepts usernames instead of email addresses for students! We try extra hard to keep our ears close to the ground with Banzai. Since the beginning Fall of last year, you have requested this feature more than anything else.

It's all very simple now.

If your school prohibits the use of student email addresses, or your students do not have email addresses, instruct them to use a username of their choice. For my username, I may choose KennyB, or KennyCoolJ, or whatever. Instruct them to make up a username that is unique, one that they will remember. If they forget, in the Teacher's Assistant of your Banzai account, you can still view their usernames and reset their passwords.

Your feedback is crucial.

And please don't forget, your feedback leads to breakthroughs in new features for Banzai. For example, we'll soon be announcing the first states for which we've completed curriculum alignment. States around the country are adopting financial literacy requirements for students, and it's becoming increasingly important that programs align themselves with the states' curriculum. Your ideas fuel the development of the Banzai program. If you have ideas or feature requests, please contact me at support@teachbanzai.com, and I will respond.

Case Study - Lonnie Moore, Iowa

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Lonnie Moore, a Personal Finance teacher at Waterloo West High School, in Waterloo Iowa, discovered Banzai while searching for interactive financial literacy resources. Lonnie has long understood that students learn best by applying their knowledge during the learning process. He concluded that Banzai would be a perfect way to bring financial literacy and technology together for applied learning in the classroom.

Click here to download this case study in PDF format.

The Simple Setup

Before long, Lonnie was up and running with his free Banzai teacher account from www.teachbanzai.com. It was a cinch for students to enroll -- they simply signed up with the class code issued by Banzai’s Teacher's Assistant.

Banzai in the Curriculum

Implementing new and interactive tools is nothing new for Lonnie. His commitment to innovation has opened doors for students to prepare for daily experiences and decisions in post-graduation life. Each student that enters Mr. Moore's classroom is trained and provided research tools for starting out a new simulated life. The first assignment is to decide on a place in the United States where he or she would like to live. Assignments that follow include finding a real job posting in that area, researching the cost of living, and finding an apartment no more than 20 miles from the new employer. What will be the rent? Are utilities included? Is it a studio? Will it be a two-bedroom apartment? The students learn that expenses add up quickly, increasing the incentive to become wise stewards of their money.

In order to introduce his students to many of these ideas, Lonnie added Banzai's Life Scenarios to his curriculum. He spent a short time introducing the scenarios, and then he gave the students a portion of each of three class periods to work on the scenarios. Anything not finished in class was assigned as homework. "It's great for my students because they have the ability to use it outside of class." He then guided them through the entire Life Scenarios together with his class, answering questions and expanding on the concepts.

Banzai's Impact

After priming his students’ minds, Lonnie instructs them to begin entering real or fictional daily expenses and income of their own. "The kids really like Banzai. It keeps their attention and it's interactive. They like keeping it up to date." Even though Banzai is useful in the classroom, Lonnie's goal is to prepare his students with principles and habits that they can utilize in their lives, especially after graduating from Waterloo West High.

Conclusion

One of Lonnie's key factors to success is his dedication to providing real experiences for his students. "When I look for something to use in the classroom, it has to be interactive and keep the kids' attention. It needs to help them understand, and they need to think it's fun!" Whether Banzai is used as a curriculum supplement or a foundation for a financial literacy course, the principles will become part of students’ lives as they grow to understand the value of a dollar.

Free Printed Curriculum

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We're aware that you have a mandate to teach financial literacy, but lack the funds to do it properly. Banzai is now partnering with not-for-profit organizations around the U.S. who are seeking to support your efforts in your area. This gives you the opportunity to receive free, printed Life Scenarios for your students.

How do you get your copies of the Banzai curriculum? Simply log in to your Banzai account, or if you have not signed up, click here. You will be asked to provide: 1) estimated number of students who need Life Scenarios, and 2) a mailing address. We'll handle the rest.

As always, you can continue to download Life Scenarios as well as the Teacher's Edition of Life Scenarios in PDF form.

Life Scenarios Teacher's Edition

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Banzai's Life Scenario's program for students now has a companion: the Teacher's Edition! Finally you can relax. Those financial literacy lesson plans involving hours of preparation -- don't bother. The Teacher's Edition of Life Scenarios provides everything necessary for turning your students into savvy money managers.

Click here to download Life Scenarios Teacher's Edition.

Suggestions For Discussion

Life Scenarios has successfully shocked your students with the realities of adult finance. Did they know that a $10 per hour job was actually $8.50 post-taxes? Did they understand the true cost of not having health insurance? The new Teacher's Edition helps you expand these concepts for in-class discussion in addition to their interactive experience. As Life Scenarios introduces students to unfamiliar and often unpleasant financial problems, the Teacher's Edition equips you with sound solutions.

Free (Quality) Resources

We know you have an unfunded mandate to teach financial literacy. We also know how difficult it is to find quality resources for free. We've done some homework and provided you with a list of free, well-organized, and quality financial information on topics like: social security, the federal reserve, insurance and more. We've even thrown in some lighthearted recommendations on tipping and eating out.

Using Banzai in the Real World

Students have always been able to use Banzai with their own finances. In fact, the most impact students will receive is when they learn to make financial trade-offs and save with their own money. Only now have we made that a much simpler process. When your students have completed the Life Scenarios program, you (or they) can reset their accounts. We've added an additional page at the end of Life Scenarios describing how this is done.

Solutions That Work

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I want to spend a little time talking with you about solutions that work, as opposed to solutions that, uh...don’t...work. Solutions for financial literacy, that is. You’ve probably had the chance to review text books, DVDs, online materials, workbooks, free stuff, expensive stuff -- there’s lots of stuff claiming to teach your students about money.

As a teacher, your resources, opportunities and time to impact their lives is limited. You, of course, have no desire to squander it.

Whether you’re just starting, or you’re a financial veteran, this article will prepare you to discern between solutions that work, and those that...well...don’t. It will provide insight into programs that do little more than dispense information and those that effectively promote change. I’ll address principles of a successful curriculum that will empower you to properly “tool up.”

Teach Habits Over Knowledge

When you choose a credit card, do you stress about its interest rate? I know it’s a personal question, but it’s illustrative of a problem many have. While governments bicker over how and when credit card companies ought to disclose what and why, shouldn’t we be asking ourselves: What does it matter if I pay on time?

Sometimes I find myself committing this error with my savings accounts. “If I move my money here to get this new high rate, I could make more...” Meanwhile I’m standing in line buying an unnecessary product that completely offsets any savings I gain from moving accounts. True, I’m buying the product with newly found cash, but then what’s the point of the savings account?

Your financial curriculum should teach habits over knowledge. Technical discussions on obtaining credit, debt management, and investing are important -- and we must have them -- but they are secondary to learning responsible behavior. An effective financial curriculum must first and foremost teach students to 1) make wise spending decisions, and 2) continually save.

It’s one thing to tell students about good behavior. It’s entirely different when you help them practice. A few scholars are beginning to question the effectiveness of financial literacy in education in general. I believe one probable cause is our over-emphasis on knowledge and not practice. Consider using a program that is online, interactive, and allows them to work through real-life scenarios.

Make Sure You’re Curriculum Is Instantly Relevant

Biology teachers enjoy a strange luxury. They’re don’t carry the burden of articulating why biology is relevant to middle and high school students. Undoubtedly, curious students ask their teachers to explain the why’s and the what’s of life. “What does biology have to do with me?”

“For you to appreciate life.”

“To expand your mind.”

“Sure. You just keep telling yourself that,” the student replies. Biology (fortunately) is a discipline in which we don’t all need proficiency. Managing money, however, is a lesson we all must learn -- preferably sooner rather than later. Articulating why financial literacy is relevant to students is a heavy burden. And you bear that burden.

With regard to biology: a little maturity turns curiosity about life and evolution to a pleasure rather than a chore. Unfortunately, consequences await those who lack the brainpower to appreciate matters of money. You must ensure that your curriculum is instantly relevant to your students’ lives.

Teach Correct Principles

Can I demonstrate this with an example from my own life?

What would your students tell you about the stock market, if you asked them today? Some might say you buy and sell stock there. Some might say their parents dabble in it. Some even may say it’s a place where smart people get rich.

When I was in high school, we made the stock market into a game. The rules worked like this:

Each student belonged to a team.
Each team was given $10,000 in play money.
Your team had eight weeks to buy and sell on the NYSE.
The team with the most money won.

Well, students aren’t stupid. We recognized instantly that “buy and hold” was not a winning strategy. There were only eight weeks to become famous, and that took aggressive action. On the first day, most of us did little more than get our feet wet. “Let’s not lose all our money before we know how to do this right.” After reconvening as a class to discuss results, most of us didn’t have much to show.

Of course, one smart alec stumbled upon a key observation early on. He noticed that when you want lots of money fast, it matters not how expensive your stock is, but rather by how much it changes. Furthermore, he found that high priced stocks tend to move slowly percentage-wise, while low priced stocks experience enormous percentage gains. His team had pulled ahead.

That smart alec taught us our first lesson in risk management: higher risk accompanies higher gains. Not to be outdone, my team jumped on board. We were learning that winners in the “stock market game” took the highest risks available.

We also learned that knowledge was power. What if the other teams discovered your secret stock pick? How do we get to it first? We asked our parents for recommendations. We competed to find the most obscure stocks we could find -- stocks nobody else would know about. These are real-life conundrums that real traders experience each and every day.

In the end, my team finished second or third place (I can’t remember). The winners moved on to a regional competition. As I went off to college, the fact that my team ended profitably imprinted the experience on my mind. I’d forgotten whether the other teams had fared as well as I, but that was no matter.

While at college, I decided to try trading in real life. I applied the same principles that I learned from class: 1) to win, you must make money fast and furiously and 2) riskier is always better. I don’t even need to tell you the rest of the story. Suffice it to say, I lost over half my investments in four months.

The high school game taught me some brutal realities about the stock market. Did it, however, teach me how to win in the “game” of life? Absolutely not. You must honestly ask yourself: Are your resources teaching students that life is truly risky? Are the tools you’ve chosen helping them appreciate long-term gains? Is your curriculum unwittingly glamorizing behavior that leads to financial ruin?

Conclusion

Remember: habits over knowledge, instant relevance, and correct principles. There are financial programs that are all or none of these things. Look at what you have. Are your tools too technical? Do they fail to engage your students? You may need to mix and match materials. Just don’t forget that in all your mixing and matching, you’re making an impact on your students’ lives, and time is short.

The Coat Hanger Principle

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

When teaching financial literacy, educators often struggle to identify a unifying principle that ties all of the pieces together. After speaking about this with teachers across the country, we've come to realize that budgeting concepts fill this role perfectly. We're so sold on this idea that we even have a name for it: "The Coat Hanger Principle."

You see, budgeting can serve as a sort of a "coat hanger" in your curriculum. All the other principles of financial literacy can be made to hang off of it. These concepts apply no matter what curriculum your state requires.

Cars, Insurance, Credit Scores, Oh My!

As students work through assignments and materials related to creating and living by a budget, seek to draw in other financial literacy subjects. For example, if you instruct students to budget for ownership of a car, you can use The Coat Hanger Principle to teach them about topics such as auto loans, liability insurance, and even credit scores.

Cash Flow

The Coat Hanger Principle isn't just about convenience in teaching. It rightfully emphasizes cash flow management as the central tenet of financial literacy. Students can be conversant about everything from insurance to credit card debt, but if they aren't living by a budget no other knowledge can save them. Furthermore, students experience better learning outcomes when financial literacy topics are taught cohesively, rather than as separate units.

Scenario Discussion Guide

If you happen to be using Banzai's Life Scenarios in your classroom today, we've made it easy to implement The Coat Hanger Principle. Our Scenario Discussion Guide relates each individual scenario to a variety of financial literacy principles that may be part of your curriculum. By using budgeting as a centerpiece of your lessons you emphasize what's most important and tie it all together in a way that your students can understand.

We've heard from hundreds of teachers across the country, but have we heard from you? Let us know what you think about The Coat Hanger Principle, Banzai, or financial literacy in general! Send us an email at support@teachbanzai.com or give us a call at 888-8-BANZAI. We're always happy to hear from you.

Life Scenarios in the Classroom

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

As always, at Banzai we're committed to bringing you your most needed resources for teaching financial literacy. That's why we released the first edition of what we call "Life Scenarios" back in April. It's an interactive teaching tool that you can use to engage your students in active learning. The Life Scenarios are, as is usual at Banzai, completely free! Several of you have started exploring the Life Scenarios and implementing them in your classes. But, for those who haven't yet made the discovery, we wanted to walk you through some of the key advantages of the Life Scenarios and some ideas on how to use them.

Introduction

You're well aware that the majority of students learn a principle best when your explanation is accompanied by a chance to do something. Knowing that most state curricula require (or will require in the near future, if your state hasn't yet mandated a class in financial literacy) a wide range of financial topics, including budgeting, credit, loans, etc., We designed Life Scenarios to introduce each of these teaching points at a personal level. Whether you choose to use Banzai throughout the term of your class or as a single lesson, students will experience first-hand the impact of a variety of real-life financial choices. Each choice is introduced as a separate transaction, 30 in all. Your student will receive paychecks, purchase groceries, make car payments, buy gasoline, and cope with an unexpected, and expensive, turn of events. We had to throw in a piece of the rainy day we all experience sooner or later!

Teaching Ideas

Some teachers prefer to introduce Banzai and give the students a class period or two to process all of the transactions in one sitting. Banzai is flexible. Students can spend the rest of the semester using Banzai to track their personal and real income and expenses, with a privacy feature available (which complies with state requirements). These teachers often spend the rest of the course term exploring the topics students experienced first-hand (but virtually and safely) in the Life Scenarios.

We've received, however, valuable teacher input that Banzai can act as the avenue (coat-hanger) to introduce financial topics throughout an entire course term. These teachers will introduce students to Banzai Life Scenarios at the beginning of the course. Then, at the start of each class, the students will be given time (or it can be assigned as homework) to process a transaction or two as an introduction to the topic of that class period. One of the best ways to prepare your students for adult life with usable financial skills is to familiarize them with actual people, actual rates, and actual processes now. For example, you can assign your students to process transaction #1 (paying rent on the apartment) and invite a representative from a local property management company or your local housing authority to advise students on wise housing selection. Or, leave transaction #28 (a visit to Mercy Hospital) as assigned homework, and arrange for a visit from a health insurance representative for the next class period.

We hope you can see that the Life Scenarios are structured to bring a whole new level to your teaching. But hey, it just helps you do what you've been working so hard to do all along--i.e. empower your students with real learning for real life!

What's in it for you?

Our goal at Banzai is to bring you effective tools for teaching financial literacy in a powerful and simple way. Just like you've seen, or are about to see, grading your students' work is simple and quick. Because all your students' entries from the Life Scenarios transactions can be easily accessed through your Banzai teacher account, grading is a breeze.

Conclusion

Many thanks to all of you for your input and helping us to help you succeed. Please let us know how it goes. Share your experiences, feedback, ideas, and requests by emailing us at support@teachbanzai.com.

New: Life Scenarios!

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

You asked for it and today, we're giving it to you! Life Scenarios by Banzai are now available, for free, to all Banzai users. We've designed the Life Scenarios to teach students what to expect in the future, after graduation. They'll be guided through a series of events such as renting an apartment, paying down credit card debt, managing an auto loan, and even balancing their checkbook.

Educators have long been asking us to develop free scenarios to replace the expensive curriculum you've previously used in conjunction with Banzai. We are excited to fulfil this wish today and we look forward to your feedback. Click here to see the new Life Scenarios lesson plans or click below to download the scenarios in PDF form.

Click here to download the Life Scenarios (PDF)

New Partnership with Credit.com!

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We're pleased to announce that we have entered into a partnership with the good folks at Credit.com, a company dedicated to consumer education and advocacy.

They'll be providing student-appropriate materials to Banzai that can be used in your classroom to illustrate important financial topics. These materials can be found on our homepage under the heading "For Students." Please let us know what you think. As always, your feedback helps us to build a better site.

New Privacy Features

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We're excited to announce that we've implemented new privacy options for teachers and students. Some of you asked for a way to turn off the ability to see your students' transactions in order to be compliant with your districts' privacy guidelines. Your wish has been granted! If you activate this enhanced privacy feature, you'll only be able to see the number of transactions entered by a student as well as the date of the most recent transaction. Additional transaction details will be blocked.

The default setup, which allows teachers to view all transaction details, remains the best choice for most classes. But if you've been unable to use Banzai with your classes because of district privacy guidelines, we hope you'll take a moment to learn about the new feature by clicking here.

Feedback, as always, is greatly appreciated!

Happy New Year!

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This past year has included many milestones for Banzai. Since the launch of the Education Edition in early September, we have seen hundreds of teachers from 38 states, Canada, and Bermuda sign up to use Banzai in their classrooms. We also attended a variety of conferences around the country and had the opportunity to meet many of you in person. Thank you so much for your support and feedback.

We're looking forward to unveiling a number of new features in 2009 to make Banzai easier to use with your students. A number of you have requested more control over privacy settings to meet district or state mandates. We'll be pleased to give you more latitude in this area soon–stay tuned for updates.

Please accept our warmest wishes for a great New Year.

Banzai: New & Improved!

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We're pleased to announce a new version of Banzai that is easier for students and teachers alike to understand and use. After receiving feedback from teachers around the country, we developed an all-new interface designed to get your students up and running more quickly. The new version is available immediately and, of course, remains completely free for you and your students. The new features include:

New account and budget setup wizard
New interfaces for tracking expenses, income, and money transfers
Easier to understand lesson plans

It is our aim to have students using Banzai to track their own income and expenses by the second time they use the system. Much of the new system should be self-explanatory, reducing the time and effort required to introduce it to your students. If you haven't yet tried Banzai in your classes, we hope you'll do so. If you're already an experienced user and wish to keep using the old interface, it is accessible from the "Advanced" tab in the student application. Old lesson plans can be found here.

The new version wouldn't have been possible without the outstanding feedback we've received from many of you. What do you think of the new system? How can we make it better? Don't hesitate to let us know. As always, you can contact us at the support email shown on this page.

Utah Jump$tart Conference

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Apologies for the late notice, but we will be presenting at the Utah Jump$tart Conference in Midway, Utah this coming Friday, November 7 at 9:45 am. Many of you in Utah have already contacted us to state that you'll be in attendance. We look forward to seeing you there!

Upcoming Conference Appearances

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Since our launch a month ago, teachers from 29 states have signed up to use Banzai. We have recently received invitations to appear at a number of state education conferences. Our next appearance will be at the the Virginia Jump$tart Conference next Tuesday, October 14 in Richmond. We look forward to seeing our Virginia users there!

We'll also be attending upcoming conferences sponsored by Jump$tart affiliates in Utah and New Mexico. Additional details will be forthcoming in the near future.

Banzai is Free!

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Since we started working on Banzai over a year ago, we have looked forward to the day when we could make Banzai accessible to everyone for free. We're thrilled to announce that, starting today, teachers and students, parents and children, and even lonely drifters, may access Banzai without charge.

Within a few months of Banzai's pay-only release, we noticed that it was young people who grasped the system most quickly. Youth have yet to be indoctrinated with poor financial habits. Banzai teaches that the most important concept in financial literacy is knowing what your money is for. Every other system in the world gets this wrong, choosing to focus on topics that don't have immediate bearing upon students' lives. This is why we are so excited to announce our new focus on education.

After spending time testing the system in classrooms and receiving feedback from hundreds of teachers. Banzai is now an educational tool. We want to help students grasp desperately needed skills in financial literacy, and there is no better way for them to get their hands dirty than by using Banzai. Teachers can easily monitor their students' progress as they learn to budget, reconcile accounts, use credit cards responsibly, and make a financial plan they can stick to for life. A case study describing one high school's successful experience with Banzai can be found here. We have created many useful resources for teachers including lesson plans and ideas for assignments. Also, getting classes set up is simple—students can sign themselves up in minutes.

If you are already using Banzai, have no fear, the application has not lost any functionality. We welcome parents to consider using Banzai in your families (you can sign up as teachers, your children as students). It will make for an effective way to monitor your children's spending. Also, with our new educational focus, we are actively adding more content to the site in the form of Banzai.edu posts, ideas for teaching, and new features.

2008 Utah CTE Conferences

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Last week we spent three days in Davis County, Utah with Utah’s business and financial literacy educators. Aside from having a ton of fun speaking with Utah’s brightest, we introduced Banzai Education Edition in case loads of jars. Banzai Education was designed to give teachers the ability to have their students manage their personal finances, and most importantly learn to save and spend wisely.

As part of our presentation at the conference, we felt it appropriate to provide a little imagery. We bought hundreds of Kerr canning jars and filled them with dollar bills - and then gave them all away. This little gimic (if you can call it that) gave us the chance to speak with teachers across the state of all sorts of disciplines about their varying needs for resources to teach financial literacy.

Preparing for the conferences, we concluded that most importantly to us, attending the conferences would be a learning experience. Many of our suppositions about what educators are yearning for in financial literacy have been proven right. A few of those insights are as follows:

Teachers want something new.
Teachers want to adapt their curriculum to a generation on the web.
Students are in need learning experiences that last a lifetime.
Educators are keenly aware of our nations financial literacy gap.
Students want to learn about money.

Education Pilot a Success!

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This week we completed our first successful pilot of the Banzai Education Edition in real classrooms. With the help of a highly experienced teacher named Susan Edwards of Wasatch High School in Heber City, Utah, 67 students were taught how to budget and save responsibly using Banzai’s unique “jars” system.

Susan, who has been teaching for over 20 years and is respected across the state in business education, said,

“I love the way Banzai uses jars to teach the principles of personal finance. My students really enjoyed the system. I look forward to using it again next semester.”

Susan used Banzai as supplemental curriculum in two financial literacy classes and one accounting class. The students’ reactions were fantastic! Approximately 80% of the students taught rated the system “Excellent” or “Good” in an anonymous survey. As part of the classes, students were required to track at least four personal expense transactions according to a self-assigned plan which was organized into virtual jars. A number of the students went well beyond the required assignment and made long detailed records of their spending habits.

We have written a case study which covers the pilot at Wasatch High School in greater detail.

Announcing the Launch of Banzai Education

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We marked an important milestone last week with the launch of Banzai Education, a new version of the application targeted specifically towards students. Financial literacy education is becoming a common component of secondary school curriculums in the United States and elsewhere and Banzai serves as an excellent learning tool.

Aside from making various changes to make the application better suited for students, the Education Edition also includes an administrative tool enabling teachers to track their students’ progress in learning the system and sample lesson plans demonstrating how to use Banzai to teach key concepts in money management. It is in everyone’s best interest to see that the rising generation has strong personal financial management skills and we are pleased to be a part of this effort.

Banzai for Education

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

One of the more interesting insights we’ve gained since launching Banzai in the fall of last year is that young people take to it like a fish to water. While the system was designed with the needs of adults in mind, a not-insignificant portion of our user base consists of high school and college students. These users quickly grasp the various nuances of Banzai and can easily see the value of following The Banzai Way.

As a means of capitalizing on this trend, we’re preparing to introduce Banzai for Education, a new version built specifically for use in a junior high and high school business, accounting, economics, and financial literacy courses. A separate teacher interface will give educators access to lesson plans, demonstration accounts, and transactions entered by their students as part of the course. Our home state of Utah recently implemented a financial literacy curriculum requirement for all high school students. We expect that this trend will soon be manifest in a number of other states as well. The skills students will obtain from using Banzai will be of benefit to them throughout their lives. Furthermore, we expect that by introducing students to Banzai before they have established ingrained financial habits, we will have a great chance of permanently converting them to The Banzai Way.