About Us
Chris Bracken, Co-ordinator of Proactive PD, has been a Secondary teacher for 20 years, predominately in
Queensland
. He has taught Senior Physics, Maths, Science and Computing in both the State and Private system. A passion for technology within the classroom and integrated into the curriculum has led to the successful development of Proactive PD in 2006, a vehicle for promoting and sharing visions of the 21st century classroom.
As at the start of 2009, Proactive PD has had 300 teachers attend the different courses on offer.
2010 has seen the publication, by PITSCO Education (Nth America) of Educate NXT written by Chris (with contributions from Damien Kee and Rob Torok). This Robotics education resource is being distributed worlwide and is a culmination of many years of Chris's Robotics Education adventure with students and teachers throughout Australia. See www.educatenxt.com for lots more info about this most useful resource.
A major achievement occured in 2009 for Chris Bracken as winner of the 2009 LEGO Teachers Award for Australia and New Zealand. In winning the award, Chris got to go to Tufts University in Boston for the 2009 LEGO Engineering conference, in July, with 100 of the best Robotics educators from around the world. A separate award winners conference followed which included a trip to MIT, working with Chris Rogers at Tufts on new products and some wonderful networking opportunities with other teachers. It is very exciting to be able to pass on much of the information and developments in Robotics Education worldwide, gained at the conferences, to attendees of upcoming Proactive PD Robotics workshops.
Chris is currently Vice-Chair of Robotics Tasmania - A group that promotes and explores all things Robotic that are occurring in Tasmania. He also is the convener of the Tasmanian State Finals of RoboCup Junior held in August each year.
Participation on the committee of Robocup Junior Australia as
Tasmania'
s representative in 2007, involved co-ordination of the annual National RoboCup Junior Championships and ongoing membership of the RCJA Rescue Technical committee. Last year saw the beginning of FIRST LEGO League in Tasmania. A successful Tasmanian State FLL tournament, which Chris co-convened has led to preparations for a significantly bigger state tournament on November 13th, 2010 at Ogilvie Girls High School.
Having spent a number of years in the Technology charged and highly successful academic environment of All Saints Anglican School on the Gold Coast, Chris has gained unprecedented experience in the use of PowerPoint and data projectors in a classroom setting. Not only has he pushed the boundaries of lesson presentation using PowerPoint, but he became an educator to other staff, within the school and the region, as to the exciting possibilities of this often under utilised or poorly used medium.
Setting up an exciting online learning environment through the school web pages, extensive use of
Pasco and Vernier
data logging and a high level of use of Excel in the Science and Maths classroom were also major technological focuses for Chris in his time at All Saints and continued at MacKillop College.
Whilst building Proactive PD, Chris is concurrently teaching in a part-time capacity at
MacKillop Catholic
College
in
Hobart
. Teaching at this progressive school provides the perfect compliment to the relevant and exciting courses offered at Proactive PD.
The exciting world of Interactive Whiteboards (IWB's) has become a big part of Proactive PD's brief. Chris is a fully accredited trainer for Easiteach, the universal software for IWB's and has recently completed accreditation as a trainer of Continued Professional Development (CPD) in Interactive Whiteboards.
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