GHDW working group
Joy Hannam worked with the Games and Gamification for Human Development and Well-being (GHDW) working group as part of her internship program in the IHDW. Her main tasks were compiling many lists to help researchers interested in serious game topics, and to familiarize them with multiple samples of these types of educational tools. The list of internship positions and companies helps students, who are interested in learning more about different aspects of serious game design (game design, game development, story writing, etc.) to find potential internship positions. Joy has researched and introduced various internships and opportunities that are available to people who are interested in serious gaming and game work at the local, Canadian, and North American level, as well as abroad. Joy complied a list for online design courses in the theme of both serious game design and game design in general. She also researched serious games based on health, social well-being, and social change. This is enhancing the scope to which people who are unfamiliar with serious games can look to and understand what resources are available to them. Another aspect of this internship involved enhancing the website conference section by adding clarity and frequency of conferences, summits, and opportunities for serious game design, networking and outreach.
Moreover, Joy has been working on designing a poster for the Gaming to Feel Better webinar, which was one of the GHDW activities. She also took on a personal project of creating an infographic for the serious games, where she is happy to be putting her graphic design skills to work and introducing the basics of serious games to the general audience. On a more research-based activity, Joy helped with a research proposal development for the Lyle Spencer Research Awards to Transform Education. She mainly helped with note-taking in team meetings and researching specifically serious games in the Global South Context, and in Africa, and specifically in Ghana.
IHDW Cellphilming Festival
The International Cellphilming Festival for Spring 2020 was a great success, and Joy was happy to be a part of helping to make the team succeed. She was fascinated to learn and see how well-being is impacted in the time of social distancing. Joy helped with social media - in particular to make Q&A posters as part of a countdown strategy. Afterwards, she also worked on posters for the day of the event and helped to make sure that these images were clear, bright and fit to the overall theme of this year. Joy also helped to beautify documents, specifically the document 鈥淟et鈥檚 getting philming! A working guide to cellphilming with young participants,鈥� by Joshua Schwab Cartas. Joy was also responsible for backup help and recording the day of the festival. Thankfully, everything went smoothly, and Joy assisted after the festival in creating a transcript of the judges鈥� feedback, as well as speeches, which were used to reflect upon. Post-festival, Joy helped the team in arranging congratulations certificates to the winner; this involved reviewing the content and commenting on what the message was, and a short synopsis of the video. Joy was also responsible to finding out a communication strategy for indigenous, as well as African partners, by taking already existing partnerships with the institute and compiling a list which will be easier to access for future cellphilms. She also helped to develop a strategy for young adults, McGill students, as well as local film schools, in order to help them find feasible connections to reach out to for next festival season. She also looked at finding marginalized groups on campus. She hopes that this communication strategy will bridge the gap between the creatives and the academics in the scope of what the cellphilming festival is all about. In one of the last projects, Joy was able to help to make two main infographics - one which is on What are Cellphilms and another on Five Steps to making Cellphilms. This was a good way for her to tie in what she had learned from the internship and explore how the expanded reach and capacity of Cellphilming.
Joy is thankful to The Faculty of Arts Internship Awards EEO.
Other Activities
Joy was also pleased to help out on other projects such as beautifying reports for the More Than Words node of the Institute for Human Development and Wellbeing. Also working with the LOTA program to create a booklet related to Mobilizing Technologies in The Time of COVID, which she hopes will be a useful resource for many during the unpresented times.
