PLAYStrong
Student Involvement
A crucial part of the DDL2 International PLAYStrong workshop was student participation which took the form of guests, focus group members and interns. The students who were involved came from various universities and had diverse disciplinary backgrounds which contributed to a rich collaborative environment.
Student Interns
The PLAYStrong workshop included four paid interns from UofT; Thais Holanda, a Psychology and Politics undergraduate student, who created daily reports on the psycho-physical setup of the five interfaces and trouble shooting, and who also provided creative input; Tanya Humeniuk, a master's student from the Centre for Comparative Literature, who was responsible for the audio-visual documentation of the workshop and provided creative input; Powrnika Kugathasan, a Psychology and Human Biology undergraduate student, who created daily reports on the social environment and workshop process/ing, and provided creative input; and Ethan Persyko, an undergraduate student of Drama, Law and Equity Studies, who was responsible for stage managing and creative input. You can find more information about the interns here.
Photos (clockwise starting from top-left): Thais Holanda, Tanya Humeniuk, Powrnika Kugathasan, and Ethan Persyko
Photo: Tanya Humeniuk. Chairs set up in preparation for the student focus group.
Student Focus Group
The student focus group was recruited with help of Rahul Bhat, Resiliency Lead and Learning Strategist at UofT, through the UofT Academic Success program. This was a group of undergraduate students who observed and tested the five interfaces over the course of four days and then provided feedback on how those interfaces could be adapted for the use of improving mental health on campus for students.
The student focus group was governed by UofT ethics protocols which meant the we were not able to include the photographs and names of those students on this website.
Student Guests
The workshop was visited by students from across various disciplines, universities, and labs, including York University and the Interactive Media Lab (IML) at UofT. This gave students an opportunity to come take a look at the five interfaces, test them out, and engage with other students and researchers from outside their own academic communities.
Photo: Tanya Humeniuk. Group of students observing and testing the 4VR Young interface.