I have a well-read 12-year-old son who has spent many hours of his life looking up the answers to anything he wanted to know on Wikipedia. He regularly read random Wikipedia articles just for fun. It is the reason that so many people over the years thought he must have a really high IQ. If he wanted to understand something better, he found things like the "In plain English" videos on Youtube or howstuffworks.com. When he was younger, I was bombarded with questions any time we were in the car and I found it very distracting, especially when I didn't know the answer. Now there is the iPhone and iPad so he can learn even more on long car rides. Not only do I not have to find answers for him any more, he shares the interesting things he is learning with me.
Our public school didn't offer any kind of computer based training or an appropriate education for my son, which is why we have to homeschool. Computer based training definitely works for us.
I found this article about the effectiveness of computer based training:
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5885754_effectiveness-computer_based-training.html
