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Great article on the top 16 foundational literacy skills, competencies, and personal characteristics students need for 21st century skills. Good graphics and video. Also has a section on how to teach these skills. The skills apply to everyone, not just students.

article by Annie Murphy Paul, July 19, 2013 about using the internet's facts and information in tandem with our own acquired knowledge--the facts--to then innovate, collaborate, & evaluate. Innovate requires us to know what became before. To collaborate, we just contribute knowledge to the join venture. To evaluate, we have to compare new information with knowledge we have already mastered.

Great slideshare presentation on creating a connected org, with simple visual comparisons of 20th century to 21st century mindset and skills.

Very nice poster/advertisement from University of Phoenix on top ten skills for successful 21st century worker. Note emphasis on leadership, communication, global citizenship, entrepreneurialism, and accessing, analyzing and synthesizing information

Web site for Digital Competence: European-wide validation for all levels of learning "Objective:  Identify the key components of Digital Competence (DC) in terms of the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to be digitally competent; Develop a DC framework/guidelines that can be validated at European level, taking into account relevant frameworks currently available; Propose a roadmap for the possible use and revision of a DC framework for all levels of learners. Outcomes: (1) a consolidated draft proposal for a DC framework, applicable at all levels of education, including non-formal settings (2) roadmap on how to realise and revise the DC framework. Rationale: With the 2006 European Recommendation on Key Competences (Official Journal L 394 of 30.12.2006), Digital Competence has been acknowledged as one of the 8 key competences for Lifelong Learning by the European Union. Digital Competence can be broadly defined as the confident, critical and creative use of ICT to achieve goals related to work, employability, learning, leisure, inclusion and/or participation in society. DC is a transversal key competence which, as such, enables acquiring other key competences (e.g. language, maths, learning to learn, creativity). It is amongst the so-called 21st Century skills which should be acquired by all citizens, to ensure their active socio-economic participation in society and the economy. Major questions: What are the key components of DC and what kind of knowledge, skills and attitudes people should have to be digitally competent, today and in the future? How can and/or should the development of this competence be validated at European level within a lifelong learning context, thus encompassing formal education, non-formal and informal learning and the world of work? "

home page of ACRL on information literacy "What is Information Literacy? Information Literacy is the set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information. The beginning of the 21st century has been called the Information Age because of the explosion of information output and information sources. It has become increasingly clear that students cannot learn everything they need to know in their field of study in a few years of college. Information literacy equips them with the critical skills necessary to become independent lifelong learners."

An article for BBC by Maggie Jackson, September 2009, about our inability to pay attention in an age driven by speed through technology "Still, I'm worried. These digital age wonders will be squandered if we can't think critically, research well, and evaluate the data-floods we now have at our fingertips - and these are precisely the skills alarmingly lacking among both digital natives and older generations. Half of college students can't judge the objectivity of a website. Workers now switch tasks every three minutes, half the time interrupting themselves. As David Nicholas points out, we spend our time online 'power-bouncing' from info-snippet to data-point. And this propensity to rely on point-and-click, first-up-on-Google answers, along with our growing unwillingness to wrestle uncomfortably with nuances or uncertainties, keeps us stuck on the surface of the 'information' age. We're too often sacrificing depth for breadth in the ways we make sense of the world. Yes, we've always had 'power bouncing' and distraction. And surfing or multitasking may have an important place in 21st-century society as strategies of learning. But going forward, we need to do much more than hopscotch across the web, split-focused and pulled this way and that by choice distractions. We cannot mistake fragmented, diffused attention as avenues of higher thought. Instead, we need to do better at cultivating - perhaps resuscitating? - deep focus, keen awareness and meta-cognitive 'executive' attention - the skills crucial to creativity and problem-solving. "

Blog by Annie Murphy Paul, June 20, 2013, PBS Next Avenue on 8 things that can make you smarter. "4. Attention You've probably heard about the "marshmallow test," a famous experiment conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel in the late 1960s. He found that children who could resist eating a marshmallow in return for the promise of two marshmallows later on did better in school and in their careers. Well, there's a new marshmallow test that we face every day: the ability to resist the urge to check email, respond to a text or see what's happening on Facebook or Twitter. We've all heard that because "digital natives" grew up multitasking they excel at it, but in fact, we now know there are information-processing bottlenecks in everybody's brain that prevent us from paying attention to two things at the same time. Focused attention is an important internal situation that we must cultivate in order to fully express our intelligence." Another excerpt: "A common example: The ready availability of technology has convinced many people that they don't need to learn facts anymore, because they can always "just Google it." In fact, research from cognitive science shows that the so-called "21st-century skills" that we're always hearing about - critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, creativity - can't emerge in a vacuum. They must develop in the context of a rich base of knowledge that is stored on the original hard drive, one's own brain. For tech to make us smarter, we need to know when to put it away.

study by Jane McConnell, Digital Workplace advisor and researcher. In the comments section by Rachel Happe, principal and co-founder of the Community Roundtable. "Awesome and congratulations on getting this out Jane. A must read for everyone in our extended network. In my area, community management, your assessment is spot on. We have long held that 1) community management is the future of all management 2) community management is like teaching - everyone does it and some people do it professionally and 3) it's a critical 21st century skill. Thank you for "

An amazing project that utilizes gaming, social media, digital badging, and virtual worlds as methods to promote digital literacy to youth in high risk areas. These after-school programs are designed to "Global Kids believes that youth be not merely critical consumers but active producers of digital media". Kids produce games on social issues impacting them (such as neighborhood violence or racial intolerance) that are designed to teach others about not just about the issue but how it feels to be impacted by the issue.

The Global Kids definition of leadership is very in tune with what we have been trying to convey, I think. Here is there goal statement: "The Global Kids Online Leadership Program (OLP) integrates international and public policy issues into digital media programs to encourage digital literacy and technical competency, foster global awareness, promote civic participation and develop 21st Century skills. OLP was created in 2000 to bring new media into Global Kids' after school programs, introduce these programs into online communities, and explore how the combination of the two could develop 21st Century Learning Skills. Through programs utilizing video games, virtual worlds, social media, and other forms of participatory media, youth involved in our programs now have the opportunity to have their voices heard and make a global impact in ways that were previously unimaginable."

excellent report by IFTF and University of Phoenix Research Lab on six drivers of ten work skills needed in 2020, from 2011.

Great article by Joe Rominiecki, June 24, 2015 in AssociationsNow on the online community manager role; quotes the latest Community Roundtable report on how the online community management skillset is needed by many staff, not just one person. There is a big difference between lurking or contributing as an individual in Facebook or LinkedIn groups and mentoring/leading/supporting an online community. Supports our inclusion of "convening" as a vital digital literacy skill.

excellent explanation by Tom Vander Ark on why parent-managed learner profiles are becoming more important all the time for young people.  Is the corollary true for adults owning their learning in portable, digital carry-alongs for sharing with potential employers, etc.  

Really good article by Joe Rominiecki, June 24, 2015, AssociationsNow, on how online community moderation/support will become part of the role of more staff, not just community managers, in businesses, nonprofits, etc. Cites the recent Community Roundtable's report, too.