Congratulations to Mr. Christopher Kelley, who was featured on Edutopia! His innovative financial literacy project, a dynamic, 8-week stock market simulation, was highlighted in Edutopia’s article “10 Brilliant Uses of Edtech in 2025.” The project combines AI tools, real-world financial skills, and student-driven competition to bring investing concepts to life. Read the full article below.

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Edutopia

10 Brilliant Uses of Edtech in 2025

We asked educators to share the creative ways they’re solving problems, bolstering classroom learning experiences, and streamlining time-consuming tasks.

By Paige Tutt, Daniel Leonard

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Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? 

Christopher Kelley didn’t want to bore his senior financial literacy students with a dry lecture on stocks. He had bigger plans—an 8-week long investment game during which students research the stock market and then compete against each other as they try to turn a stake of $50,000 fake dollars into a fortune. The free plug-and-play simulation is hosted through MarketWatch.

To ground students in the dynamics of stock trading, Kelley teaches a lesson on investing and picking stocks that culminates with a quiz. Before they start to trade, students are required to dig deeper, generating some initial investment ideas and completing their “due diligence,” using AI tools like Google’s Gemini and other sources to inform their selections. 

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Students use their investment journal to document each trade—recording details like the price per transaction and their purchase rationales.

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While students can invest in anything they want, they’re required to keep a detailed investment journal: “I want them to be reflective about why they are making these investments and to deter trading thoughtlessly.” Kelley regularly updates a dry erase board with the biggest gainer and loser of the previous day as well as the person who traded the most. Students are graded on several key components, including the thoroughness of their research and how well they’ve maintained their investment journal and balance sheet. Kids become deeply invested, literally. Kelley sees many of them checking their accounts and trading during their lunch period.

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Students can earn up to 100 points by actively maintaining their investment journal and keeping a balance sheet of their profits and losses as they invest.

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In the end, students are not only learning about their risk tolerance but receiving a crash course in data analysis and applied mathematics: analyzing candlestick patterns, for example—charts showing stock price movements over time—to make informed decisions, and using spreadsheets to perform a number of calculations like their net gain and loss for each investment or determining “how long it would take for their investment to double in value.”

View the full article.