Interactive Ontario - Digital Dive Online Classroom

Trethwest recently completed a brief "how-to-get-started" tutorial video for Interactive Ontario's Digital Dive Online Classroom - part of the Black Youth Action Plan (BYAP). The BYAP is a great initiative aimed at eliminating systemic, race-based disparities by increasing opportunities for Black children, youth and families throughout Ontario. Their Digital Dive Online Classroom program offers a virtual classroom aimed at Black highschool students in Ontario where they can learn directly from professionals in the Video Game / Interactive Digital Media industry. We at Trethwest participated in this program, giving prospective students a chance to see into our world and learn from our efforts. Read more for details.

Our tutorial video aimed to expose youth to inner workings of mobile game programming and content creation, collaborative team efforts, and programming in general. The tutorial also aimed to inspire. We understand for someone just getting started in game programming and interactive media, it can be daunting. Trust us...we been there! But our tutorial module was aimed specifconquering those overwhelming feelings. Not only did we attempt to give a primer as to how to get started, we also purposefully incorporated our story and journey to humanize the process. The goal was to animate in our youth that feeling they can do this and encourage them to take this journey. We at Trethwest come from Toronto's northwest communities and our video, while made for all youth, specifically speaks to kids with similar backgrounds to us in the hopes that they will follow in our path.