I have a hard time thinking of a good ghost story. I know a few, but they aren’t my stories to tell. For instance, there is the story about my cousins’ haunted house or my dad’s idea that ghost activity is really just a function of someone’s brain — that we don’t know enough yet about what a brain can do, and the paranormal activity is an example of that.

My mom was convinced, by the way, that my dad was haunting her for a while after he died.

But all of these stories are heresay. I don’t have any personal experience with them. I have heard them told. They are sometimes told by people I trust and would not question. I, however, don’t have a single story.

When I started writing this, I had a story I was going to write about, and it went out of my brain. I need to figure out what it is/was, so I can continue writing.

I remember now. It has to do with my cousin again.

When I was around 11 or 12, my cousin hired a person to read her friends’ palms. She had a party. She believed her house was haunted, and the palm reader was also going to tell her about the presence in her home.

I was staying at my aunt’s house that week, so I attended the party. I remember getting my palm read. The palm reader said she had a hard time reading my palms since I was so young and things were still undetermined.

After the reading, my aunt gave me a blank card to write down everything the palm reader said. I did, and I kept that card. I need to dig it out of my old stuff and compare what was predicted to what actually happened. If I did this, my story might be a bit more interesting than it currently is…

So, I do this thing where I tell people all of this. And up to this point, it is all true. I really do have a cousin who believes/suspects she lives in a haunted house. She did have a party. I did have my palm read.

But at this point, I diverge from the true story. I tell my listener that the palm reader told me I was a dog in a former life and that I was beaten to death after I contracted rabies. My owner had to break my neck in order to kill me.

At this point, I reach up to the back of my neck and find a vertebre sticking out. I say that the palm reader said that I still carry a bump on my neck from it being broken. At this point, I urge the person I am talking to to reach over and feel the spot on the back of my neck. As they come in contact with my neck, I growl at them, which freaks them out.

Of course, the palm reader didn’t tell me that stuff. I’ve just learned that mixing all of the true stuff with the fake stuff makes for a better story.

My aunt recorded herself on cassette tapes telling about all of the various mysterious things that happened at my cousin’s house (my aunt’s daughter). Listening to my aunt tell the stories was kind of creepy. I’m not sure if she intended it to be.

My cousins’ call their ghost Lisa. Things I have heard include a radio dial (back when you saw the entire dial) going from one end to the other without human help. Tools being misplaced overnight despite being left in certain spots. The burner on the gas stove lighting while my cousin was still walking towards it. When my cousin’s husband asked “witchy poo” what she did with his hammer, it came flying at him from across the room. The appearance of a woman in a long skirt in their hallways. Finding bones in the ground when they were first excavating the home, which made them think they might have disturbed a grave.

I was young when I heard most of these things. My memory could be faulty. But I’d be interested in checking out what that palm reader said about my life so many years ago and to compare to see if any predictions came true.

Today, I asked my English students to write about whether they would want to attend a technology-free school. It was a prompt I heard this morning as I was getting ready for work. It is today’s feedback question for 9and10news.com.

My immediate reaction is that I wouldn’t want to attend a tech-free school. I rely on technology when I teach. I store my teaching material in the cloud (dropbox.com), which allows me to access handouts, powerpoints, videos and other items using technology. I always have the most up-to-date version of an assignment or handout or powerpoint instead of forgetting to copy or print the correct version or have the saved file on my home version.

But that’s my perspective as a teacher. What about as a student? Does technology limit creativity? Does it hinder learning?

I know there is a growing concern with cell phones in the classroom. In classrooms where there are computers, I have to monitor my students’ activities to make sure they aren’t on facebook instead of doing the work they should be doing. Or do I? Is it my responsibility? Or should the student learn by natural consequences?

If a student is texting now instead of writing as they should be, should I be the one to correct them or get them back at task? If we are talking about college students, I don’t think so.

I have had students look up information relevant to class discussions on their smart phones. The contributions have added to the class discussion. I have had students fail a quiz because they were texting when they should have been listening.

I don’t think technology limits creativity or hinders learning, but it can distract from it.

My biggest concern with technology is that it makes the first attempt at writing look polished. Back in the day (read when I was learning to write), I used a typewriter and white out. I made sure that what I was going to type was the final version of the paper I wanted to submit. I wrote my drafts by hand and scribbled and corrected and drew all over the paper to indicate where paragraphs needed to be added or deleted. The messy results made my thought process clear. It was easy to see when in the writing process I came up with a certain idea.

It wasn’t until all of that messy process was out of the way that I began to type my paper. Now, the typing starts immediately. There isn’t any need for rough drafts or white out. A clean-looking draft can be immediately printed. All of the work is hidden. This mistakenly leaves some students to think that all of the work that goes into a draft doesn’t need to exist. It looks good, so it must be good.

Word processing programs can also be used as a crutch. Students don’t need to learn to spell if spellcheck finds the errors for them. This is why so many of my students defiantly do something instead of definitely do something.

Still, a technologically free school is an artificial world. It ignores that students need to use technology in the work world. It also suggests that students will learn to use technology on their own. I have students now — digital natives — who do not know how to add attachments to emails, which is really an essential skill. This would be even worse if students weren’t working with technology in the classrooms.