Clifton Bartholomew

About me

As a teacher, I work extremely hard to create spaces where young people have the freedom and confidence to be able to explore coding in a way that is meaningful to them. By making actual artefacts such as games, websites or apps, with their own hands, they are able to see the value of coding and how it can be used to solve problems in their own lives.

As a developer, my focus is Enterprise Architecture and Business Process Management. Technology is not the catch-all solution we think it is. It is a small part of a much larger system that is comprised of people, processes, relationships and other unidentified factors. My passion is to think about and codify the system as a whole to make peoples lives easier.

As a self-proclaimed philosopher, I read books and think a lot to try and be clever. It has not worked yet.

Growth

Employment History

2021 - Present: Reddam House Ballito
Information Technology Teacher

I teach Information Technology for grades 10, 11 and 12 and Coding & Robotics for grades 6-9 and I am the team leader for iSAMS, which is the school's student management system. I have been to matric marking every year while at the school. One of my passions at the school is hosting an annual coding competition called Techbyte Fever.
2015 - 2020: Destiny Life Academy
GET Phase Head

I taught Physical Sciences and Mathematical Literacy at a grade 12 level for 6 years. I developed the reporting software required to generate the school's reports and I was in charge of timetabling. I was also the GSuite Administrator for the school and often led training in this area. In my final year I was in management as the head of the GET phase, which is grades 8 and 9.
2013 - 2014: Altech Multimedia
Junior Software Engineer

I developed software, middleware and drivers for digital decoders (like DSTV) in many different coding languages (C, C++, C#, etc). I also consolidated code bases as a build-master.

Qualifications

2022 - 2024: University of Southern Africa
Honours in Computing (partially completed)

I studied modules in Software Engineering, Software Project Management, Ontology Engineering, Enterprise Architecture, Information Security and Machine Learning. I stopped due to work life balance.
2019 - 2021: Theological Education by Extension College
Local Preacher's Certificate

I completed 1/3 of a Theology degree in order to be qualified to preach under a minister within the Methodist Church.
2016 - 2017: University of Southern Africa
Post-Graduate Certificate of Education

I completed my PGCE with didactics in Mathematics and Natural Science.
2010 - 2012: University of KwaZulu Natal
Bachelor of Science in Pure Mathematics and Computer Science

I completed my degree with suma cum laude (80% average) and a Deans commendation.