The future of education?

I’m not alone in discovering online education. Jonathan Chevreau, from the Financial Post, has recently discovered the benefits of an online classroom for his daughter’s Grade 11 Personal Finance course.

My teenage daughter recently enrolled in a Grade 11 personal finance course at Ottawa Carleton E-School, an online high school accredited by Ontario’s education ministry. The course features an excellent text book, Financial Decisions 11, that covers financial planning, consumer spending, vehicle costs, compound interest, annuities, exponential growth and other real-world topics. The class meets weekly during Web-based sessions with a live teacher, who sets and grades assignments that are submitted by e-mail. Students also discuss assignments outside of class in an online forum. At the end of the course, my daughter’s regular high school will count the credit towards her diploma requirements for graduation.

For most of us who endured high school calculus or trigonometry, real life doesn’t offer much opportunity to keep up such skills (unless you’re an engineer), and they are often forgotten. But the math of personal finance is immensely practical. The sections in my daughter’s online course on compounding interest and the present versus future value of money will help her - and young investors like her - both in managing future debt and learning how to invest to build wealth.

You can read the full article on the Financial Post website.