Interactive Ontario plays a substantial role in Ontario’s interactive digital media community by establishing a unified industry voice for companies large and small producing exceptional work in the areas of reality applications, video games, interactive digital entertainment, and more.
In 2019, students in the Communications – Professional Writing post-graduate program worked with Interactive Ontario to produce material for the company’s main website.
As part of the overhaul of the website, students were tasked with creating virtual showcases highlighting notable member companies, with the objective of highlighting the exciting projects and/or products that they have produced. Students had the opportunity to exercise their project management skills by managing the communication with their client, scheduling interviews with representatives of each company, working collaboratively to create the showcase, and consequently, met the deliverables the client set in place. The deliverables included interviewing representatives of the companies with certain questions that would help briefly explain who the company is, what they do, and what they have created. This information transformed into a case study format that students created with various images, external links, and interesting copy, all of which ended up making the content that would be digitally displayed on the Interactive Ontario website.
Jennifer McIlroy, Storyworks Coordinator and Instructor, worked closely with students to establish a collaborative space to learn and ask questions, while also allowing the students to delve into this experiential learning opportunity and navigate working with a real client on a real project. “What impressed me was not only the work but the professionalism that was demonstrated by all sides.” She continues, “Oftentimes as a writer, you have clients who know what they’re going to feel like when they have what they want written, but they often don’t know exactly what the ‘what’ is. I think that for the students to see their work as a product and their skills actually as something helpful, is a very important aspect of the Storyworks course in the Professional Writing program.”
Interactive Ontario’s President & CEO, Lucie Lalumière, worked with the students through the entirety of the project, which granted students the opportunity to work with a busy client who has many responsibilities, as well as learn to navigate the unexpected incidents that can inevitably happen when working on a large-scale project in the workforce. Lucie explains, “The team was very dedicated and engaged with producing something that would be useful, not only to Interactive Ontario but to the industry.” She continues, “It was a very useful experience for Interactive Ontario because first of all, I didn’t know the Storyworks program, so just to know it and know that we can generate other opportunities in the future, and there will be others, was one big silver lining. The other was we received content that we would not have gotten otherwise, so that was very useful for us.”
For Communications – Professional Writing students, the work with Interactive Ontario provided a unique writing opportunity, which allowed them to learn the ropes before graduation. Jennifer says, “Storyworks helps empower students for the first time to understand that they are more than just a service bureau. They are, in fact, very skilled, trained, and talented consultants and partners.” As emerging professionals, Jennifer explains that students own the client relationship throughout the course. “It’s scary and unfamiliar, but owning that relationship and knowing that I’m in the classroom absolutely trusting them to do that, is important. I’m not judging them for what they don’t know, I am letting them discover it and learn.”
Lucie also explains the beneficial components of Storyworks, as she says, “It’s not only to provide students with the opportunity to write, but also provide them with the realities of working, which means people not available to answer questions, and people not responding on time. Students had to learn how to push to get some answers and try to figure out ways to pitch the importance of what they were doing, and I think it’s important for students to attain experience that goes beyond just the skill set of writing.”
Julia O’Leary, a recent graduate of the Communications – Professional Writing program who took part in this Storyworks project, explains how it was beneficial to her as a student and a graduate. She says, “There are only so many mock projects and fake clients you can create – at some point, you need to gain experience working with an actual client to prepare you for the workforce. I was lucky enough to have that opportunity, working with Interactive Ontario through Storyworks. The experience I gained writing, researching, and interviewing for IO was incredibly valuable, and something I mentioned in multiple job interviews in my hunt for full-time work.” The added benefit for students in general and Julia in particular, is the positive reference from a real client in the industry. Julia earned a reference for life!
For this Storyworks project, you can find some of the work students put together on Interactive Ontario’s Member Showcase.
By: Alexandra Few - A 2020 graduate of the Communications – Professional Writing program at Centennial College who has first-hand experience with Storyworks and is an avid supporter of its push for experiential learning in the classroom.