Financial planning gets virtual reality — from by Michael Liedtke

Excerpts:

SAN FRANCISCO – Financial planning often involves lots of spreadsheets, pie charts and eyes glazing over.

Fidelity Investments aims to change that equation with an experiment in 3-D technology designed to make money management seem more like a mesmerizing video game than mundane number crunching.

Welcome to “StockCity,” a virtual-reality landscape dotted with skyscrapers representing the stocks in a person’s investment portfolio.

…

StockCity’s architecture changes with the fluctuations on Wall Street. The heights of the buildings are determined by the prices of the stocks in an investment portfolio, while the widths are based on the number of outstanding shares. When the market is open, it’s daytime in StockCity, and night falls when the market closes. Market rallies cause the sun to shine, downturns trigger downpours of rain. For now, stocks can’t be bought and sold within StockCity.

 

 

Also see:

This teacher taught his class a powerful lesson about privilege — from buzzfeed.com by Nathan Pyle
With a recycling bin and some scrap paper.

 

He concluded by saying, "The closer you were to the recycling bin, the better your odds. This is what privilege looks like. Did you notice how the only ones who complained about fairness were in the back of the room?"

Nathan W. Pyle / Via buzzfeed.com

From DSC:
This teacher taught an important lesson using materials already in the room; a great idea/approach/illustration here.

Looking at the recent piece entitled, “The Faces of American Debt,” such financial training would be very helpful — for individuals in their financial planning, and for us in higher ed to see the very real implications of the high cost of college.