Oliver Earl

Computer Science Lecturer and Software Engineer

Petrobolos Games

I am a computer science lecturer and software engineer currently studying Post Compulsory Education and Training at Birmingham City University in pursuit of a career in Higher Education and research.

My current academic interests lie in visual programming languages using blocks, how they might be further incorporated to support and positively impact students, and lessening the difficulty of transitioning to text-based languages by means of hybridised environments.

My miscellaneous hobbies and interests include writing on a range of technical and pedagogical topics on my blog and volunteering time towards student mental health activism and welfare.

Interests

Teaching and Pedagogy of Computer Science
Blocks-Based Programming / VDLs
Full-Stack Web Development
Mental Health and Student Wellbeing

Education

PGCE in Post-Compulsory Education and Training, 2020
Birmingham City University
MSc in Software Engineering, 2019
Aberystwyth University
BSc in Computer Science with German, 2018
Aberystwyth University

Skills

Just a handful of the skills and tools that I routinely depend upon.

Teaching Ability

A confident and knowledgeable teacher with experience in Higher, Further, and Secondary education teaching computer science, software engineering, and IT.

Pastoral Toolkit

Multiple years of recognised volunteerism within student support and training. Certified in mental health first aid and suicide intervention.

Industrial Experience

Experience working within both software engineering and IT technical support environments that provide additional context to teaching.

PHP

Weapon of choice leveraging Laravel or CodeIgniter for building performant MVC monoliths and RESTful APIs.

JavaScript

ES6 script often paired with Vue.js to quench and bring to life front-end applications and SPAs.

HTML5 and CSS3

Clean, semantic markup and stylesheets alongside Sass, Bootstrap, and/or Tailwind with accessibility and performance in mind.

Python 3

Java

GNU/Linux

Experience

A brief look at my main employment and volunteering experience.

For greater detail, smaller roles, and responsibilities, please check my LinkedIn.

Trainee Teacher of Computing

Arden Academy

Jan 2020 – Jun 2020 Solihull, England

Trainee teacher of OCR GCSE and A Level Computer Science for secondary and sixth-form pupils at one of the top state schools in the country.

Trainee Lecturer of Computing

Solihull College & University CEntre

Oct 2019 – Dec 2019 Solihull, England

Short-term lecturer training position, delivering content on various Level 3 IT programmes and shadowing a range of delivery.

Postgraduate Demonstrator

Aberystwyth University

Sep 2018 – Sep 2019 Aberystwyth, Wales

Part-time demonstrating (teaching assistant) post, assisting with a range of modules including Arduino C++, Java object-oriented programming, Linux and Windows Server management.

IT Support Technician

Nightline Association

Jul 2017 – May 2019 Remote

Helpdesk support, technical administrative tasks and maintenance, and technical writing for Nightline branches across the UK and Ireland.

Front-End Web Development Intern

Amadeus IT Group

Jun 2016 – Dec 2016 Bad Homburg v.d.H, Germany

German-speaking internship developing and researching web applications written using Angular, TypeScript, ngRx/store.

Undergraduate Demonstrator

Aberystwyth University

Sep 2015 – Sep 2018 Aberystwyth, Wales

Part-time demonstrating (teaching assistant) post from September 2015 to May 2016, and September 2017 to May 2018 in both my second and fourth academic years respectively.