Bob Hull

March 11, 2008

"We have been preparing 20th-century graduates," Bob Hull told Putnam Rotarians today, "who must copmpete and survive in a 21st-century world.

"We want our students to be more than simple repositories of information for responses on a test. We want them to know how to use that information, to apply that information. And more importantly," said Putnam's Assistant Superintendent for Instruction, "we want our students to be able to create information. It's no longer acceptable simply to pass a test, but rather what can be done with that knowledge.

"We are collaborating with four other states in a 21st-century learning initiative," he told the group.

"We are no longer looking at a minimum level of learning," he said. "We are looking at a floor, a starting point, and to see how far we can go beyond that starting point.

"Putnam teachers are involved in extensive training for implementing problem- and project-based learning where everything is taught in the context of a 'real-world' problem. Nothing is taught in isolation. Nothing is taught just for 'segmented-skills,' but everything has relevance, and everything has a relationship.

"While we still have the traditional three Rs of reading, 'riting and 'rithmatic," he said, "the three Rs now are Rigor, Relevance and Relationship.

"We have some students who are [on the internet] collaborating every day in 'relationships' with students in other countries.

"In a fourth-grade classroom which is a model for the 21st Century initiative, all students are provided with PDAs [personal data assistants]. The students complete their assignments on their PDAs at their work stations on portable keyboards. At the end of the exercise, the work is transmitted wirelessly into the teacher's PDA. The teacher checks the work on a computer, and returns the assignment, also by wireless transmission, into the student PDAs.

"That's in one of our eleven model classrooms," says Hull. "We are piloting different technologies in other classrooms. We have other classrooms where all the assignments are done on iPods and students are pod-casting back and forth."

In another classroom, students are assisted in their learning with Novas.

"A Nova," he explained, "is a small computer which can be used like a notebook. Kids are allowed to take them home.

"We hope they are indestructible," he quipped.

"The 21st-Century initiative is not intended to keep us first in West Virginia," said Hull. "Children in this century will not be in competition for jobs in West Virginia. They will be in competition for jobs around the world.

"The goal of the 21st-Century initiative is to make them globally aware, and economically and financially literate."