Random Thoughts and My Experience With Technology

My first home computer was a Tandy 1000 that my aunt handed down to me in the late 1980's. There were a few model variations of the Tandy 1000, mine had a 7 MHz CPU, 640 Kb of ram, and no hard drive. About twenty years have passed and it's amazing who much technology has changed; my best friend has a cell phone run by a 1 GHz processor, with 1Gb of ram available. My newest pc is a quad core 2.66GHz with 6Gb of ram and a 1Gb graphics card. It's about ten times as powerful as my Pentium 4 and yet it cost me well under a grand, about 1/3 of the cost of my Pentium 4, even though it came with a 1080p monitor.
Most of my early learning about technology involved playing video games. In high school I found a dumpster on Sheppard AFB that the Air force tech guys would throw old computers into. I took the gutted pc's and used the parts to build a working pc. Once I had a working pc I installed and played computer games on it. (Doom and Star Wars: Dark Forces were my favorite games around this time) I checked that dumpster for parts often, because they would throw out mother boards with better graphics cards (most were on board) and better processors every few months.
My passion for gaming also brought me to use the internet. As a youngster my parents would not pay for internet at our house, so I took a job at a fast food restaurant to pay for my gaming hobby. My interest in pc games brought me to use technology for more than just computer games, and played an important role in my decision to go to college. My experience has shown me how much of an impact the use of technology can have on a student.
I have not used technology to create projects as often as I would like to. In the past I have edited photos, created PowerPoint presentations, and fooled around with making web pages on Microsoft's website. If I were to start teaching today, I would not be prepared to effectively integrate technology in my classroom. Fortunately for me I can learn how to use programs quickly, and I will learn effective strategies for teaching with technology in my educational technology class.
I am in a gaming club, which allows me to interact with people from all over the world on our TeamSpeak server. TeamSpeak is a VOIP and file sharing program, that allows my group to communicate in real time while in game. We can also send each other links, updates for programs, and other files using TeamSpeak. Our TeamSpeak server houses various chat rooms. We have one chat room for each of the games our group plays, but we normally all stay in the same room and share stories. In our club playing the game is not as important as getting to know each other and we have members as old as 75 and as young as 21. (We have a minimum age requirement because we also enjoy a good brew while we play and we share information about beer from various microbreweries around the country.)
TeamSpeak is a neat program, and I could see it being used for interclass room collaboration. For example, a science and math class could use it to collaborate on a project and send files, pictures, and links to each other. TeamSpeak would also allow students from other classes to work in small groups on a project by entering a separate chat room and focusing on one aspect of a problem. While TeamSpeak is not as neat as video chat, it requires less bandwidth which would make it easier to collaborate with classes in countries that may have weak internet connections. TeamSpeak is also safe for students to use at home because it is password protected and the administrator has total control of the users, which means that only students and teachers would have access to the chat rooms.