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Jolene Kearse
Location Returned to Canada from Shenzhen, China
Achievements
Activity
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I changed how I felt about pics of me online when I started using social media for work. I was using my city's site to advertise for real estate. Then a friend posted group photos of us at bars. I remember initially being really worried it would affect my professional image, so I had to ask him to untagged me.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I love sudoku! I play at least one a day.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Love this! It would take some practice, but that's a challenge I like. I could see using these while teaching for fast finishers.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I can understand Matt's use of Facebook to post life events. I posted about my divorce there and got lots of messages of support. Since FB used to be, or still is as I'm locked out of my account and don't know anymore, a place to connect with family and friends you used to know, I always found it a more 'social' social media. As you mostly know the people on...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Twitter has become my dominant form of social media. I might check in on others when I'm bored with a few free minutes, but really it is only monthly or less. However I do use Twitter daily and sometimes check more than once a day.
I moved from a Chinese city with 20 million people to a Canadian one with only over 100,000 plus no accessible transportation,... -
Jolene Kearse made a comment
Now I really only use Twitter with Discord, Instagram and Reddit thrown in from time to time. I used WeChat pretty much for everything when I lived in China: texting with friends and setting up meetings, and hugely for work both teaching and real estate. I used to use Facebook too, but only when I got out of China to Hong Kong - strangely enough my account was...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I agree that they all were correct; as I went through I wanted to click them all as I could reason it through. I chose A as it seemed the most universal. They were all true though depending on the user's mood and use at that time. It is such a quick way to share your thoughts with such a wide audience!
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
That was fun. Although I couldn't get the four 4s one. And I suppose you could say I 'cheated' on questions 6 & 7, because I saw straightaway how to use python to solve them. Q6 was just like the Caesar's Cipher and I had my program on my computer to decode it quickly. Then Q7 just made me think of the % operator.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
It can be a brain workout and keep your brain active.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Wow, okay, I do know some recreational math! I love playing sudoku and nonograms.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I hadn't heard of recreational math, since I'm not so good at math anymore, I thought it would be a fun thing to do. I'm currently learning Python and find the math difficult. I guess I just want to get some more practice working out problems. I also teach online and think I may get something from this course to add into mine.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Thank you for the course!
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I made my binary into a list, then used the insert function.
https://repl.it/@PharaohNutz/Denary-to-Binary-Conversion -
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Jolene Kearse replied to Greg Vanetzian
It's a loop, so it kept moving through the equation until it couldn't anymore.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Straightforward, but I appreciate the examples for when you would use floor division and the modulus. I have learned them before but they didn't mean much to me as I couldn't think of a time you might need that. So thank you for that!
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Thanks! I especially liked the last exercise.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Great idea! I love how it forces students to visualize it and use team work.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Hi everyone! I'm Jolene from Canada. I was an English teacher abroad, but have been learning frontend development, but have been struggling with the JS. I found a Python good course to get my mind into the 'programming language mode.' I struggle with the math and logic aspects, so I'm hoping this course will help supplement my learning. My long-term goal is to...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I enjoyed this course, thank you!
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I'm interested in a career switch from teaching to frontend development, maybe in the future going back to teaching it! I really just want to move back abroad and found that this really interests me. I love seeing how things work. I'm working at teaching myself CSS at the moment, but have begun some JavaScript. I love working freelance, but it does seem...
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The video emphasizes how important communication is as a developer. So I can see it is really important to learn all the lingo, so you will be able to collaborate effectively.
I really love the creativity of it, and liked how she mentioned you can see your creations or changes immediately. I have already found out how welcoming the dev community is, albeit... -
Jolene Kearse made a comment
Wow, I had a totally different idea of what a webpage template was. Really good to hear this clear explanation! The PDF really shows how to to separate parts like the navigation and main body with the look and feel of your site across multiple pages. I had used Wix before and really enjoyed it, both making my site and getting compliments on it. That had a...
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Jolene Kearse replied to Hazel D
I like the name 'stripy', it would make it more fun when you read through it; it shows more personality!
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I got everything done, but I know my code is messier than someone with experience. Like in Step 6 I wrote
.contact-address, .contact-phone, .contact-map {} as one selector, where his is much shorter
.contact details div {}. Also in Step 7, I just wrote
.intro {} instead of
p.intro, which is more exact than mine. -
<div>'s can be used to create different parts of the page when they have class names. So you can have <div class="nav"> or <div class="timetable">
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I found the contact details part 6 to be the most difficult! I thought I had followed the directions, but had the address nicely spaced out with the phone and map all squashed together. I forgot to properly look at the HTML, but was able to fix it when I noticed each part had a different class! D'oh!
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Other than the address I did everything the same. For the address I just wrapped each line in a <p></p>, but I liked how his didn't have so much space between each line. So I learned the <br> is useful!
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Just remember to put an opening tag ( <p> ) and a closing tag ( </p> ) on everything. It's all colour coded, so all the paragraphs, list items, and table data should be white, not brown. The editor does some thinking for us. ;)
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
It seems like a lot of it is just copying and pasting! Like for the table I found it easier to write out the table rows, then copy and paste it for each item, then paste the menu items in.
<tr>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr> -
Jolene Kearse made a comment
I'm excited especially to be using CodePen. That's one thing I didn't really understand when reading articles about coding. It is really helpful to know that coders use it to only share a part of their projects. I would read articles on places like CSS Tricks and be out of my league just by them showing something in CodePen; it's more accessible now!
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Good course so far! I like how it's approaching it from a different angle than any other coding courses I've done or tried. It's filled in some things I was missing. Also I had read how copying websites is a good way to practice, but didn't really connect this to the developer tools. I'd barely used them and see how you can get all the info from them.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I can change the text and colours, but really wanted to change the pictures! I went to the boredpanda.com site and I could make the panda in the border image at the top disappear, but couldn't figure out how to change it at all.
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Don't worry. I've written a bit of HTML and CSS; it looks much easier when you do it yourself. There's just so much that they've used on their site.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I definitely need to practice CSS. I love how artistic you can get with it, but it looks so intimidating when you check out the sites online.
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Jolene Kearse replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
I just had to check that out. They have a whole lot of code I can't understand, but did manage to find the p tag after scrolling for quite awhile.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Cool! I didn't know you could edit the page this way. I knew that you could 'inspect' it and have opened that on Chrome and Opera before, although I didn't really do much above checking out what fonts the used and small stuff like that.
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Jolene Kearse replied to Shaban Iqbal
Most modern browsers work similarly, there just might be differences in some of the code you (might) have to write or how it displays. Usually difficulties only come with older versions of Internet Explorer.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
The internet has been invaluable in my life. Living in China I had to look up vocabulary and translations whenever I needed specific help. During the pandemic I've gotten huge into online courses and am thinking of moving my teaching online - although I don't really have much of a choice there!
Learning HTML and CSS will help me advertise my teaching and...
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That's why I'm going into it too - we can do it!
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I'm really happy to see someone who was self-taught actually working in the industry and now managing! I've heard three months mentioned as a point that you can learn enough to get a job, but think I'm only about half that dedicated. It is really heartening to hear that it's possible in a short amount of time though!
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Really helpful explanations. I especially liked reading that JavaScript is everything that changes the page without re-loading it. I also didn't know what the back-end was; now I have a better understanding.
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It helps to see what all the other characters in the URL are! I knew which one was the host, but didn't know about all the other characters.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I didn't know IP addresses had a part in the process, so cool! I also didn't know what DNS was beforehand. It was interesting to see the whole process.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Hi, everyone! I'm Jolene, currently living in Canada. I was an English as a Foreign Language Teacher for years and years before being repatriated. I'm lucky enough to have some time to learn and prepare for my next life stage. I'm still torn between education and coding, but love the FutureLearn platform. I have learned some HTML, CSS, and the very...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I'm excited about this. I do know some HTML and CSS, which I learned through apps. But I am self-taught so there are some definite holes in my knowledge, which I happily saw were covered in the course. I also love learning in the FutureLearn community.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Excited for this!
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Well all the points contribute to less stress. Either by making the team feel safe and like part of the group as in listening. Or by letting them know what is expected like leading by example.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I agree with creating a safe and supportive environment. First, a teacher needs to be aware of how their corrections can affect the student. You need to craft them in such a way that they understand many people make the same mistakes and they can see you are helping them to improve. Second, a teacher should encourage students to support each other by...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Great video! Humour is a great way to learn as it gives our brain those feel good chemicals which helps to reinforce the new information. Often information is stored episodically, so we can recall info better if we can remember the joke.
The video's content is also great to keep in mind. We can retrain our brain; we've all done it in the past. The... -
Jolene Kearse made a comment
Good leaders are using more of their socio-emotional skills at the same times as the logic center. They are simply using more of their brain and creating more neural pathways.
I found it interesting that the team members' brains were engaged when the leader was speaking, but weren't as active when a non-leader spoke up. -
Jolene Kearse made a comment
As Dr. Rock says: we can't see in people's heads. As a teacher it can be difficult to find the reason why a student can't understand a concept, or did bad on a test after responding so well in class. If I can understand how a person learns or responds to tasks via what is going on in their brain, I can help them. I can give them an understanding of how they...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
For me a good leader has to have three things:
1) empathy: the ability to connect with others and know how their orders effect them;
2) decisiveness: someone has to decide on a direction; and
3) a sense of humour: this helps in challenging times.
I found that my leadership style changed from being a new teacher to now. My training taught me to really... -
Jolene Kearse made a comment
Hi everyone!
I'm Jolene, a EFL teacher. I took a couple other courses here by CQUniversity and found them so interesting. They gave me a different way to approach my work. I've been reading more articles and watching the odd YouTube or TedTalk video, but missed the focus/discipline of taking a course. I want to see what new things I can learn here to...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I ultimately choose disagree, because there are some basic facts that need to be memorized before we can make use of them.
I was thinking of a primary ESL class, where the first lesson often has a lot of new vocabulary. The students need to use these in the various games we play. However, this isn't strictly memorization; they learn the new word usually...
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Great point for adults, @AnabellaLópez ! Not only does that connect the information to a past experience, but it also shows them how the info is useful to know.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
It really does help to break any given tasks into numbered steps and to keep these displayed throughout. If using a PowerPoint it is a good idea to have the steps dim in and out (from the animations bar) when most of the class is complete one stage. You can also repeat the instructions for each step to keep everyone focused.
I also tell students to ask...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I highly recommend the further readings (the first link needs the 'od' deleted to work) as they really explained the concept of eustress (which I was quite fuzzy on) and offered examples of how to speak about it with students.
I think taking 5 - 10 minutes to discuss it with before their first test or presentation would be beneficial. Provide a personal...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Interesting points to know. I remember never taking the time to breath deeply and calm down when I forgot an answer for an exam. I don't think I was ever told that could help, so this is a great tip to pass on to my students!
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Thanks so much! You did a great job of introducing me to these concepts and awakening my curiousity. I've found tips to include in my teaching, while at the same time having a better understanding. Thanks again!
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Really interesting course! I love how straightforward and understandable you had made the workings of the brain. I think this will definitely help my teaching!
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I lived many years in China with not the best work conditions (like one school sent me a text message saying they weren't going to pay the monthly salary until two weeks after a major holiday - and wished me a great time). While I did have many friends it seemed, I didn't have a lot of good ones. After my divorce I had a long period of depression that I seemed...
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Very true! From my past struggles with depression, I know how important the outside world can be to your state of mind. I'm always conscious of choosing colours I enjoy in my surroundings and arranging items in pleasing patterns to add little bits of happiness to my day. It was my way to recondition my brain to think more positively. Our classrooms might not...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
All are good tools and you can easily see when the class went well. Some are best used at certain moments in class. When energy is low or you want to pull focus somewhere new, a short movement based game is great. To give an extra confidence boost, you can designate one student as the 'teacher' to lead a well-known game. But a think it's important to encourage...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I do need to be aware of my tendency to get frustrated when students are angry, frustrated or just can't seem to get what I'm teaching. I often think it's something I'm not doing right and try to explain things in other ways. I need to take a step back and consider what other factors could be impeding their learning or motivation. If they're not ready to be...
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I like what you said about interacting with students before class, @AbeerAl-Mohsen ! It is important to give students this sign that we have noticed them and believe they can do great things. We also have to be careful to make sure we aren't singling them out in front of their classmates. Look for every opportunity before or after class or during breaks, or...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
First off, we could show them this video! It does a great job of succinctly explaining how new habits change our brain, and it's not static. We can point out how trying new things isn't easy at first, but becomes second nature, like riding a bicycle.
I would explain it in ways they can relate. For older students you can try coffee. Ask them if they liked it... -
Jolene Kearse made a comment
Well from this excerpt talking about social-emotional learning, I'd say the core elements are supportive relationships, low levels of stress and the creative use of stories. This is basically setting the foundation from which all kinds of learning can spring.
We can activate biochemical processes to stimulate learning by providing students with challenge... -
Jolene Kearse made a comment
That statistic about the orphans is so sad. But it does to show how important our environment is; parents, family, teachers and friends.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Thanks for that great information! I can already see some ways to use this in my teaching. Notably providing opportunities to practice new information as close to four times as possible. And making sure to link material to other knowledge, like what students have previously learned or their own experience, to help embed it in long-term memory. Looking forward...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Retrieval should be the goal of any education, although it often isn't. But recall is the important initial step. It is needed to truly make use of knowledge. When we can apply upon it is when we really 'know' something. I have a horrible memory and a lot of facts in my long-term memory, but I can't bring them up until I can recall episodic memories like when...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Wow! This answered questions from the last step! Did anybody else have to pause and re-watch the video over again?
So to be more effective, we can work the working memory by using both iconic and echoic via images and speaking or headlines. We then need to use the central executive of long term memory to coordinate the visual-spatial sketchpad with the...
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Jolene Kearse replied to Tan Keng Leng
Yes, very good questions!
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
That is so cool! So taking from this we need to activate actin and get an explanation and some examples or practice within the first five minutes. Then repeat with practice about four times within the hour to create a synapse.
So, as an online EFL teacher, this means my class alone will not be enough to fully learn a sentence structure. I guess I...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Since the brain is essential to our bodies, it makes sense that regular exercise and a balanced diet is good for it as well. It is interesting how interconnected everything is. Since the pandemic, I've been taking a lot of online courses and practicing yoga. It all works together to make me more energetic and productive.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
With researchers studying these genes, we can get new insights into how to teach effectively and efficiently. We can use this to modify teaching methods or have a scientific reason for why one already works.
We now know that merely lecturing for an hour isn't as effective as breaking it up into smaller bits or tasks, because our brains' attention span...
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I run into the same problems, Tania. It can be frustrating to go over and over the same material and trying to find a better way to get it across. I often just try different ways, hopefully this course will help us find more effective ways.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Hi! I'm excited to learn about new ways to maximize learning and memory. I myself have a horrible memory, so it would be cool if I could figure out how to improve that. But more importantly I'm an English as a Foreign Language teacher and really want to find the best ways to help my students.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Hi everyone! I'm Jolene from Canada, a EFL teacher. I'm amazed by the new information coming out on our brains and I want to use these insights to better help my students. I look forward to learning with everyone here.
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Jolene Kearse replied to Yousra Ferchichi
Yes, the ease of finding loads of information quickly sounds great, but we have to adjust to it. For instance, I was teaching a journalist program for middle schoolers only about 12 years ago and we only touched on verifying sources. Now with so many people using social media rather than newspapers for news, students really have to be careful about fake...
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Jolene Kearse replied to Anna Hamill
Very true. But I also think once we have the proper education on social media etiquette it can increase our critical thinking. I know I have to think long and hard about anything I post; whether it can be taken a different way I didn't mean or offend someone.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
This question is quite similar to the mobile phone one, it can be either answer with a lot of caveats. The main thing is technology is just a tool, people can either use it correctly or abuse it. By itself it's a distraction, reams of data, or a stressor. It's up to us to use it to enhance our lives.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
That was a hard question! It can really go either way. We lose a lot of the body language and physical contact when we use our devices to communicate. But if we learn how to use them properly (eye contact from looking in the camera, sending encouraging comments rather than trolling, etc), they can help us stay in close contact with our social groups.
I...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
I always try to include multiple methods while teaching, like showing an image, headline and talking, and adding motions if possible. I knew that the more 'processes' used, the better the learning. This was my poor way of expressing the concept of 'multi-channel processing.'
Having a better understanding that visual, semantic, sensory, motor, and...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Getting more social presents us with more opportunities, challenges, and varied ways of thinking. It teaches us to be faster on our feet and allows us to contribute more to conversations.
I liked how Matthew Lieberman mentioned how learning something to teach others teaches us better than simply learning for a test. I remember this from being a math...
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Jolene Kearse replied to Iva Seferi
Read it from the first link for the intro, it continues on.
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Yes, Anthony! Student relationships are paramount. We are there to teach students, so it is best to focus on them. I always focused on them during my career more than the administration, although it really does help if they share a concern for students' welfare.
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Jolene Kearse replied to Wayne Sutton
I agree, this is a great 'selling' point for the book! ;) Teaching is definitely a communication practice. And I've had great success encouraging my students to cheer for one another, which I now notice is a kind of tribalism.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
This seems like a very interesting book!
It reinforced my idea that our past experiences have a bearing on how we learn. Coming from the West, where I was encouraged in any new interest, to an English teacher in China, where high test scores seem paramount; I had to work harder as a teacher to reach my idea of 'education.' Creativity and imagination...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Hi, everyone! I'm Jolene and was an EFL teacher until taking a break after returning to Canada. I'm jumping back into online teaching. I've been taking some online courses to get back into things and hopefully improve.
I'm interested in finding different ways to reach my students. My teaching philosophy is 'Make them have so much fun, they forget...
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Jolene Kearse replied to Ezekiel Abdul Koroma
I liked how he said one online comment could set off a reflective chain of thought. This reminds me that it doesn't really matter how we reflect just that we do it.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
My professional goal is to continue to assess my own teaching using techniques learned in this course and to interact with more teachers. This will help remind me to continually assess my students rather than just term end and learn to provide more opportunities for my students to develop their critical thinking skills. This is important to me, because I...
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
My strengths are lesson planning and timing, but I could put more focus on assessing learners (outside of preparing a report) and encouraging critical thinking.
I really want to move more into lesson materials and app development. I spend hours working on PowerPoints and handouts and would love to make this my professional focus. I need to keep my foot in... -
Jolene Kearse made a comment
I'm going to be reading any articles on 21st century skills that comes into my feed.
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Jolene Kearse made a comment
Thank you Deepali, course contributors, mentors and my fellow learners, I learned a lot from all of you. Before this course I'd talk about my work with other teachers, but I realize I was really limited to my highs and lows. I now realize how much more I can use this to improve my student's learning. I was pleasantly surprised to find how many people are...
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Learner empowerment is also an area I want to focus on. I always considered myself as more of a facilitator than teacher preparing them for tests, but there are other ways I can use to get this across to them.
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Yes! I knew it would be good for me, but I didn't know it would be this good.
