Math Money Use

The earned Math Money can be spent by the student in several ways. One of the uses of this money in MathLanders is to buy computer time. The student can enter the Windows environment for his personal use of the computer at any time, but he has to pay a certain amount for every minute of access, from his own earnings in the chequing account. The cost of computer access in Math Cents per minute is set by the parent to any desired value (go to the General Settings section to set this cost). The student is allowed a certain amount of time to access the Windows environment, based on the Math Money he currently holds in his account. Once the account empties, MathLanders automatically switches back into the quiz mode, where the student is allowed to perform more math work to earn more Math Money.

The savings accounts may serve various purposes. For example, let's say that your child wants to save some money in time to buy a video game, if you, as a parent, don't want to pay for it, but you allow him to buy it with his own money. For this purpose, the student may repeatedly transfer small amounts from his chequing account to this special savings account any time he or she wishes. Because these savings accounts serve special purposes, Math Money cannot be withdrawn by the student or transfered back into the chequing account to waste it by accessing the computer. When the student saves enough to buy his video game, you, as a parent, will withdraw this amount from his savings account and buy his game, as you agreed. This is one reason why the earned MathDollar should be at parity with the currency of your preference.

The parent plays the role of the bank and has complete control of these accounts. He can deposit or withdraw any amounts from any account at any time for any possible reasons. For example, let's say that your child wants to buy a guitar, which costs 500 dollars. You want your child to pay for it, so he can use one of his savings accounts for this purpose. However, since you agree with buying a guitar, rather than buying a video game, you may want to support it by making a start deposit of 250 Math Dollars into his saving account.

The student has other options over his earned Math Money, when he uses MathLanders in Quiz Mode. One of these options is the 'Print Cash' option. With this option, the student can withdraw any amount from his chequing account and print it out at the printer. The printed cash can be used in many ways that the parent and the child can decide. Here is an example. Let's say you go out to shopping, and you take your child out with you. Since you, as a parent, decided that your child only gets presents for free when his birthday or when Santa comes, you won't buy him any toys, but you will allow him to buy them with his own earned money (with certain restrictions, of course). For this, your child will need to print out his own Math Money and bring it with him while you shop. If he finds something that you agree it is appropriate for him to buy, you may ask him to give you his Math Dollars in printed cash and give him back real dollars (or whatever currency you use, at parity with his Math Dollars) so he can buy his toy, or game, or whatever it is that you agreed he can buy. This way of using the Math Money makes them real money, which increases your child's motivation to earn them. That works well for you as you don't have to buy him anything for free, and works for him too as it gives him the sense of earning his own money and buying stuff with them.

Then, the printed Math Money you can use later on for various exchanges or purposes. For example, you may decide to give him a bonus for some good things he did, such as cleaning up his room, and you can pay with this cash, if you have it. Or you may ask cash from him if you do a service for him, such as repairing his bike that he broke by carelessness, or whatever circumstances and strategies you may choose to use. One way to make sure he does not steal the cash from you is to look at the serial number each math bill has imprinted on the top-right corner, which is in the format of date/time of the printing. If he needs to print cash and bring it to you for whatever reason (services you provide for him, or a fine or anything else), you would expect the serial number to match the current date/time. If you see that the serial number corresponds to a date in the past, then you know those bills were not just printed now.