Berkshire Resources for Learning and Innovation
NonprofitMonthly MeetingsFocus on K-12
Click
HERE to access BRLI Canvas Training Resources for districts
Click HERE to read about our Ed Tech Champion Model Highlighted by The Learning Accelerator
Click HERE for the BRLI FC124 Grant Press Release - "BRLI Receives 126k Award from MA DESE"
BERK12 Educators Win Innovation Challenge
Click HERE for BRLI Spring 2022 ESE EdTech Spotlight on BRLI
Click HERE for Learn Platform Case Study, featuring BRLI
Click
HERE for BRLI Spring 2022 Professional Learning Opportunities
Click HERE for the October 2, 2021 ESE EdTech Spotlight on BRLI
Click HERE to view a video of BRLI Testimonials from August 2021
What is BRLI?
BRLI has shifted our name to Berkshire Resources for Learning and Innovation (BRLI). The acronym remains yet our new name is more reflective of the work we are engaged in including professional development and regional collaborations with a significant focus on educational technology.
Beginning in the spring of 2020 as The Berkshire Remote Learning Initiative, (BRLI) began as a consortium of Berkshire County school districts partnering to adopt a shared learning management system (Canvas). Our goal was to ensure equitable access to high quality online/remote learning for students across the Berkshires, in light of current COVID-19 concerns by collaborating in that moment as well as for the future. We focused on:
- Sharing a learning platform that is powerful, highly flexible, and adaptable for multiple curricula and those who learn differently
- Cultivating virtual spaces for collaboration, professional development, and support
- Bringing schools and communities together to share resources, build countywide networks, innovate to expand educational quality and opportunity, and address regional inconsistencies
Our overall project goals evolved to include:
- Foster Strong Connection Among School Districts
- Provide Robust Support for Learning Across Multiple Modalities
- Facilitate Teacher Collaboration and Professional Development
BRLI has been fortunate to have been awarded funding from MA DESE in 2022 and 2023 with the Building Capacity for Effective Ed Tech Use Grants (FC124). This work has focused on building our regions educators skills through effective ed tech use, lesson and unit design, as well as alignment to MA DLCS standards and ISTE standards. We focus on cross district collaboration and professional learning through a variety of means including
- Drop in sessions
- Short and long form courses/experience
- Focused professional development aligned to the needs of our BERK12 partner and BRLI project districts
BRLI Project Districts in The Berkshires include:
- Berkshire Arts and Technology (BART) Public Charter School
- Berkshire Hills Regional School District
- Lee Public Schools
- Lenox Public Schools
- North Adams Public Schools
- Pittsfield Public Schools
- Richmond Consolidated School
The BRLI network is collecting workshops, videos, tutorials, and other items to add to our repository of shared resources.
Courses and workshops created in 2020-2021 can be found at the link below.
Important Project Documents
- BRLI Overview (2021-22) Document
- BRLI Professional Development and Activities Draft Plan (2021-22)
- Various articles (shared drive) curated by BRLI Steering Committee
- BRLI (2020 plan)
- BRLI Professional Development Plan (2020)
Contact the Project Coordinator - Brendan Sheran for more information at bsheran@pittsfield.net
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