Back in the day...

Right now I sit in front of my flat-screen monitor, typing on a "blog" remembering the days when wireless internet hadn't been invented and when Apple computers were pretty much all you could get.
Wow. that seems like forever ago. Just yesterday, my cable internet went out at my house and literally I didn't know how to function without checking my email and wondering who was writing to me or about me or what information I was missing because I wasn't connected to the internet community. We are indeed a technology-based society.
My most enduring memory about technology in my younger years has to do with the program known as Accelerated Reader. In it, students read books from home or the library that were on the list of "AR" books. For the book to be "AR" there had to be a test purchased for it on the computers in the computer lab. Each test was appropriate for the grade level of the book. That is, the harder or older the book, the more difficult the test. As the difficulty rose so did the points the book was worth. That was the fun part: accumulating points. Those points were like money in my pocket. You could buy toys, pencils, pens, books, hats, shirts, whatever if you had enough points. Since I loved to read, this point system suited me perfectly. As long as you truly read the book the computerized tests were fairly easy and that meant lots of points for me.
Since the tests were computerized, it was easy to keep track of how many points you earned and what you had saved up. I spent many an hour in the computer lab taking the tests from the books I read. Once, during mystery month in the 5th grade, I exhausted the Nancy Drew section of the library in my effort to read the most mysteries. I was putting away a book every day and a half. Those points kept accumulating and I kept reading and taking tests.
I credit that program with increasing my desire to read and also for increasing my ability to comprehend the words I read. It also helped that taking Accelerated Reader tests was also required for a grade in English. That and the reward system made reading both necessary and rewarding for me as an elementary school student. Technology has advanced far past that program, which now seems somewhat ancient. I still agree with the philosophy behind it though: why not allow reading to be rewarding in more ways than just "it will make you a better student" or "you will be smarter for reading this". Accelerated reader worked for me: I am a lifelong reader and lover of books.