My group had been given an assignment to tell a data story – focusing on the “so-called” AI-revolution, what impact has it had on affordability in Durham Region impacting a specific population. We elected to focus on international students since many of our group members could speak to the lived experience of that population.

After doing some exploratory research, we started to map out our story. We liked the idea of building a data story through social media posts since so many of our group members used those platforms to keep in touch with their families back home. This data story would ultimately end up as an explainer video of a sort.

Jun is from the Philippines, in his thirties, and has been struggling with sticker shock at food prices in Canada.

From there, we mapped out our storyboard on Miro, focusing on four key concepts: introduce Jun and his struggles, social media ad targeting, possible AI-powered app solutions, and a satisfying conclusion.

From there, it was trial and error to see if this data visualization that we wanted to use for our data story was something we had the skillset to build. There was significant reluctance to learn new software as many of the group members were already struggling with the many digital tools already introduced in the larger program.

Having built many explainer videos in the past using Powtoon (see LIT and BA(HONS) paths), I volunteered to build the video. I decided to lean heavily on websites such as Envato and PixVerse for templates and quickly generated AI-videos. I used CapCut, Canva, and OBS Studio for video editing, image editing, and video capturing, respectively.

Finally, a significant requirement of the assignment was to demonstrate how your data story demonstrated skills and understanding learned from our Visualization course. PowerPoint slides and facial capturing from OBS Studio assisted with those elements.

Behold the finished product:

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