Money Management

How Technology Is Increasing Our Financial Knowledge

How Technology Is Increasing Our Financial Knowledge Leave a comment

I am an economist and the founder and owner of Finance Blog Zone

Financial learning

With access to the internet becoming more convenient every day, our access to knowledge is expanding drastically. When it comes to our financial knowledge, changes in technology in recent years have made it easy to almost anyone to have access to the information they need in order to manage their personal finances. Online, there are numerous different courses aimed at just that – increasing your financial knowledge and giving you exactly what you need to be able to manage your personal finances more effectively.

Depending on your needs, there are a few different types of sites out there for learning. Each provides a different approach to knowledge and has information aimed at varying educational requirements. By taking a look at your options, you can easily choose the right source of information for your own knowledge-gaining purposes.

Online Learning Institutions

Educational sites are growing in popularity, and there are a few major players out there who offer very extensive subject matter across nearly all different areas of education. A lot of the time, these sites will be affiliated with an existing educational institution to provide comprehensive information to anyone wanting to learn.

Some of the different choices provide free learning material, while others provide more comprehensive full-fledged courses for a small fee – a fraction of what you would pay at a traditional school.

  • OpenLearnOpenLearn is a free online service provided by the Open University, based in the UK with locations across Europe. The website provides free access to countless hours of leaning materials across a number of financial subjects including business, accounting and personal finance.
  • Universal Class In the financial field, Universal Class offers over forty different courses. These courses are very comprehensive and informative, but the company does charge a small fee. Some of the self-paced classes include Economics 101, Intro to Commodities, Options and Futures Markets, and Retirement Planning.

Online Personal Finance Courses

For anyone who wants a relatively short and comprehensive basic introduction to financial topics, online personal finance courses are the way to go. These types of sites often provide multiple courses that contain numerous different short modules designed to give consumers a manageable amount of information at a time. Spread over a few days or weeks, these courses can make a significant improvement on your financial situation.

  • MoneySKILL Hosted by the American Financial Services Association Education Foundation, MoneySKILL is targeted to young adults. This course teaches the fundamentals of money management in a number of different areas like expenses, investing and credit. The main course is divided into 36 separate modules.
  • FDIC’s Money Smart Money Smart is a computer-based instruction course offered by the FDIC. It has separate tracks for adults and young adults, and offers a myriad of different modules tailored to each. Each module lasts around 30 minutes and is focused on a game-based learning design.

University-Sponsored Courses

In recent years, some universities have begun offering short online courses to consumers looking to improve their finances. Most often, these free classes allow you to work at your own pace through provided course material. These university-sponsored courses are available for anyone looking for a college-like basic introduction to financial topics such as saving, budgeting and improving credit.

  • Manage Your Money From Ohio State University – Manage Your Money is an easy to follow course. Information is presented in six different “lessons” and each section is filled with information that is easy to understand and corresponding worksheets and activities to ensure knowledge retention.

In the past, few people who weren’t directly involved in finance or business had a solid understanding of such topics. Today, the internet makes it easy for that kind of information to be shared to anyone who is willing to take the time to improve their financial situation. By taking advantages of the plethora of different personal finance classes available on the internet, you can become a much more informed consumer and take the steps needed to steer your finances in the direction that you want to take them.

I am an economist and the founder and owner of Finance Blog Zone

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *