In the upper eastern part of Bucaramanga, specifically in Morrorico, great stories are being created. The hallways of Colegio Oriente Miraflores, the voices of young people, and the echo of new ideas mix with the cameras of their cell phones. There, classes have been transformed. In the classrooms, they not only write on the board, they also film stories.
All this is being achieved through the Itinerant School of Audiovisual Production, a project that was born in the Musilab UIS Research Group of the School of Music at the Industrial University of Santander. This initiative seeks to implement training in audiovisual and phonographic production through the creation of digital content, not only as a means of showcasing the training processes of students and their results, but also as a way of promoting the social appropriation of the knowledge acquired in the classroom through the dissemination of their research.
The project is led by María Camila Velandia Gélvez, a professional with a degree in Music from the UIS. “The idea for the Itinerant School of Audiovisual Production arose at the beginning of the year when I started as coordinator of the Semillero and I came up with ideas for projects that we would carry out with the students. As a student of Music, pedagogy and the social appropriation of knowledge are very important to me,” she said.
In her quest to implement the project in schools, by chance she met Martha Isabel Ortiz, a teacher at Oriente Miraflores School, who was already planting the seeds of interest in the media and the implementation of new technologies in teaching in her students’ minds in the classroom. Upon learning this, María Camila presented the school with a proposal on how students could see the creation of digital content and audiovisual production as an opportunity to make learning much more educational and easier to acquire knowledge in the school’s subject areas.
“A preschool teacher invited Professor John Ciro, who is the director of the research group, to come and do a workshop with the children. The whole team came. We did some very interesting phonographic work with young children, and that’s when we fell in love with the school, with the teachers’ proposal, their initiative, and their passion for us to work with them,” says María Camila.
That is how they began the entire internal administrative process at both the UIS and the school, taking into account all ethical considerations, and in September of this year, they began working with the students.
Learning in a different way
The project is being implemented in the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades at Colegio Oriente Miraflores. Today, students see their cell phones not only as a technological tool, but also as a bridge between what they feel and what they learn.
Martha Isabel is the teacher who is currently accompanying the implementation of the Escuela Itinerante project from the school classroom. She is a specialist in Pedagogy and Semiotics from the UIS. Part of her teaching with students focuses on the development of the media, so when she learned about the Musilab project, she knew it was in line with her curriculum.
“We see relationships in the scripts the kids are writing, in the proposals for the work they did, and also in the audiovisual part itself. So, that has been very interesting from that perspective. Their perspective on cell phone use has changed. They have learned a lot because it is not just about taking a photo or making a video, it is about thinking from a more professional point of view, with more technical criteria. It has also changed the way they post on social media today,” says Martha Isabel.
From reality to film
They do not play other people’s characters: they are the protagonists of their own stories. In front of the camera, every gesture and every word becomes a reflection of their reality, a way of learning by seeing the world through different eyes. Through audiovisual art, these young people weave stories that go beyond shots and scripts; they seek to move, raise awareness, and, above all, understand that knowledge is also built on emotion.
María Camila reiterates that this is in line with the proposal of Escuela Itinerante, an initiative that seeks to respond to the need to articulate efforts between academic training and the real dynamics of the audiovisual sector, promoting spaces for dissemination, reflection, and learning around lines of research-creation in sound and audiovisual production.
During these months, the students participated in a training process that combined academics with experimentation. Led by Professor Jhon Ciro Gómez, professor at the School of Arts and Music, Master of Music from EAFIT University, and Master of Percussion from the University of Antioquia, they explored audiovisual and sound production, in addition to pedagogical sessions.
“They had an experimental workshop where we came with prepared scripts so that the students could have the experience of having a script, learning it, and recording it. Our first product was short films on different topics.”, recalls María Camila.
These short films, produced from start to finish by students at Colegio Oriente Miraflores, will be screened at the First Independent Production Meeting: Sound and Image UIS, which is being held as part of the Ninth International Percussion Festival.
The Festival is a gathering that seeks to create a space for creation, rhythm, cinema, and sound experimentation, promoting the dissemination of high-level artistic content.
Escuela Itinerante is supported by students of the Professional Technical Program in Cultural and Creative Project Execution, which operates at UIS Floridablanca. This academic program focuses on optimizing organizations through strategies for planning, organization, management, and control of human, financial, and technological resources, among others. In the area of planning, the administration focuses on essential projects to define the strategic, tactical, and operational direction of a company or organization.
A change of perspective
The sessions at Colegio Oriente Miraflores take place every Tuesday and Thursday. They combine theory and practice. María Camila and the students of the Professional Technical Degree in Cultural and Creative Project Management guide them in making the recordings. The settings are none other than the institution’s facilities. Of course, many take advantage of their free time at home to record their own content for social media. But unlike others that are ‘out there’, this one is high quality.
Dana Nicole Bustamante is an eighth-grade student at the school. She is part of the Escuela Itinerante project. She says that in these sessions she has learned how to manage social media and upload content to it. “It has taught us about camera angles, how to write a script, how to record, and things that will be very useful for us in the future or present when we want to upload content to social media, as well as for video games, series, movies, or stories we want to make.”
As the project nears completion, just like the school year, María Camila now not only sees the progress of the work she set out to do with the Semillero, to which she has devoted time and effort, but she also sees changes in the lives of young people, who now perceive technology as an ally and not just a way to pass the time.
“Perhaps in the process, one does not realize how it has transformed the students, but they have shared how it has changed their personal, academic, and even professional perspectives, because many say they had an interest and now this is strengthening those skills, which they suddenly had as a curiosity. In addition, they went from consuming content on their social networks to thinking about being creators, about being disseminators,” says the leader of Escuela Itinerante.
Juanita Herrera Fonseca is also a student at the school and says it has been a great learning experience. “My perspective on social media has changed because I know I can use it better and for relevant things.”
For the members of the Escuela Itinerante de Producción Audiovisual project, seeing how this initiative has enriched the knowledge of the students at Colegio Oriente Miraflores fills them with satisfaction and pride, as they have combined technology with teaching their followers, which is a greater value than a ‘like’.
