Handbook of Research on New Media, Training, and Skill Development for the Modern Workforce

The abrupt shift to online learning brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the need for the adoption and application of new media, virtual training, and online skill development for the modern workforce. However, organizations are grappling with unanticipated complexities, and many have recognized the gaps between online and in-person competencies and capabilities with unaddressed needs. There is an urgent need to bridge this gap and organically grow engagement and connectedness in the digital online space with new media tools and resources.

The Handbook of Research on New Media, Training, and Skill Development for the Modern Workforce exhibits how both business and educational organizations may utilize the new media computer technology to best engage in workforce training. It provides the best practices to aid the transition to successful learning environments for organizational skill development and prepare and support new media educational engagement as the new norm in all its forms and finer nuances. Covering topics such as occupational performance assessment, personal response systems, and situationally-aware human-computer interaction, this major reference work is an essential tool for workforce development organizations, business executives, managers, communications specialists, students, teachers, government officials, pre-service teachers, researchers, and academicians.

About the Author

Dominic Mentor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Teachers College Columbia University (TCCU), who has won numerous awards for curricula design and interactive courses. Awards for his training, learning and development work include Learning Elite Award for Corporate Training (2020), Named Emerging Training Leader by Training Magazine (2020), Optimas Gold Award for Innovation regarding mHealth App Design & Development (2019), International E-Learning Awards Honorable Mention, Blended Learning (2019), the Blended eLearning Award from The International E-Learning Association (2015) for "E & M Learning for Connected Collaborative Teaching and Learning Communities", and the Workforce Magazine Optimas Gold Award (2014) for envisioning and enacting a new digital transformation approach (2014). Additionally, his innovative mobile learning work has resulted in him being invited as a speaker to UNESCO’s mLearning conference at the Paris headquarters in France in 2014, 2018 and 2019. Dominic graduated from Teachers College, Columbia University (TCCU). His research interests and publications include issues in cognition and mobile communication, social connectedness, mobile portable communities, mLearning, computer and mobile assisted language learning, teacher and trainer technology development, hypermedia design, including online formative and summative assessment practices. Prior to his studies at TCCU, Dominic served as an award-winning high school teacher and contributing author of a series of modular textbooks offering outcomes-based teaching and learning materials. As a Fulbright scholar Dominic completed another Masters and then his Doctorate at Teachers College Columbia University. Dominic Mentor then served as a National Director of a talent development non-profit training organization serving corporate, civic governments, and other vertical industry clients and was awarded numerous workforce development and educational technology grants. He also initiated and co-designed the USA’s first mLearning course, as well as a social media fellowship for the NY Mayor's Office of Adult Education. At the talent development non-profit, Dominic digitally transformed the organization’s program from paper-based practices to an engaging multimodal digital participatory environment with 100% adoption. Offering students from impoverished backgrounds, the ability to continue with their studies and training though handheld and mobile devices. Using handheld devices, Dominic also created portable digital learning communities which empowered both staff and students. As a national organization with eight sites in 2012, the organization was able to align eight cities’ curriculum and enhance its delivery modes, offering faster scalability with higher return on investments (ROI). Further helping the training organization to grow to 20 cities in less than three years. Through Dominic’s intentionality and vison, the digital transformation also prepared and catered for the national training organization being approved for higher education credit recommendations with more than 2000 colleges across the USA. While teaching in the Higher Education environment, he also serves as presenter in various teacher and research conferences as well as coordinating professional development computer technology workshops. Dominic also has chapter publications on integrating computer tablet technology into education, as well as chapters in the Encyclopedia of Mobile Phone Behavior (2015). Dominic also served as Editor of the Handbook of Research on Mobile Learning in Contemporary Classrooms contributing 4 chapters as author and co-author (2016). Given the popularity of the books and the topics of cognition and handheld devices, second editions of Dominic’s books have been requested and published. One of which was published in 2019 (Advancing Mobile Learning in Contemporary Educational Spaces). Dominic’s most recent conference presentations were papers titled 2020: A Case Odyssey – Training for a Data Governance Software Technology Company presented at the 2020 International Conference on E-Learning in the Workplace and a presentation on the award-winning course he designed and enacted interactively titled mHealth Learning and App Development for health diagnoses and tracking with AI presented at the UNESCO Mobile Learning Week 2019, at their Headquarters in Paris, France. Dominic has also delivered keynote addresses at the International Conference on Globalization, Education & Diversity in Washington, DC in 2016, the EdTech Summit in South Africa (2014), the 3rd annual Educational Technology Conference at William Paterson University of New Jersey (2012), and Kappa Delta Pi’s 2015 inauguration ceremony. Dominic also served as an invited panelist and speaker on technology in education at Adelphi University, Borough of Manhattan Community College, as a speaker at TEDx 2012, Harvard’s 21st Century Academic conference, as well as invited panelist and speaker for the inaugural 2015 GlobalMindED conference.