BETA CLAY PIGGY teaches basic financial concepts to younger students. Masquerading as wacky-looking avatars in an online virtual world, users are invited to find a job and manage their finances as they learn about credit/debit cards, credit scores, and maintaining different bank accounts. Load times are inconsistent and the signup process still needs work (users have to provide a parent's email address to receive an activation code). But we were impressed with the level of detail. For example, after taking a job at the toy factory, our avatar had to correctly inspect toys for quality (puzzle-like pattern matching between images) in order to earn an income. Portions of the virtual world are still in 'Coming Soon' mode but the first pass looks promising for teaching and reinforcing notions of personal responsibility, work ethic, and financial discipline. This little piggy seems to rival Agent Piggy, another financial learning site for kids. Guess what they say when you click on "home"?
