1. 21st Century Skills
In a Flat World

2. Collaborators Synthesizers Explainers Leveragers Adapters Green People
Tom Friedman identifies eight roles that will create the “new middle class.” Our students will need to be great…
Collaborators
Synthesizers
Explainers
Leveragers
Adapters
Green People
Personalizers
Localizers

3. Collaborators
Consider collaboration within the classroom, school, and community.
Consider collaboration across language barriers, cultural divides, and linguistic differences.

4. Synthesizers To see relationships between unrelated fields.
To detect broad patterns rather than specific answers
To invent something new by combining elements nobody else thought paired.

5. Explainers
Telling and using stories in order to deliver ideas in ways we can remember by placing facts in context and with an emotional impact.
Using stories to persuade and clarify what is meant or how things work.

6. Leveragers
Managing oneself despite a constantly evolving workplace that demands new skills and abilities.
Making the greatest use of various systems, technology, and processes in order to achieve a desired result.
Knowing how to identify a problem, analyze its causes, solve it, then redesign that system to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

7. Adapters
Learning to use a variety of tools or techniques to solve emerging problems.
Preparing to do different things or play different roles.

8. Green People
Environmental literacies enabling us to recognize and focus on energy and environmental problems as an emerging opportunity.

9. Personalizers
The “extra touch” in a service that inspires loyalty or adds value.
It allows people to work effectively with one another.

10. Localizers
Using global resources and technologies to create local solutions.
Finding appropriate resources outside of the local context and using them in ways that improve efficiency and reduce costs.

11. Work Cited
Burke, J. (2007). Teaching English Language Arts in a "Flat" World. In K. Beers, R. E. Probst, & L. Rief (Eds.), Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Friedman, T. (2007). The World Is Flat. New York, NY: Picador.
Pink, D. (2005). A Whole New Mind. New York, NY: Penguin Group.