The School of Industrial Design of the Universidad Industrial de Santander (UIS) held the event “Testimonios de paz: divulgación y comunicación de resultados de productos”, where the achievements of the Testimonios de paz project were socialized. This initiative, developed in agreement with the University of Antioquia, the Metropolitan Technological Institute and the Francisco de Paula Santander University, consisted in designing a gamified pedagogical proposal based on reconciliation stories of actors of the Colombian armed conflict.
“We are presenting a strategy of social appropriation of knowledge, with which we seek that young people, through a gamified tool, learn about the historical memory of the armed conflict. The objective is clear: we do not want this to happen again. This proposal builds a transmedia narrative using the testimonies of victims, guerrillas, paramilitaries, members of the armed forces and civilians,” said Luis Eduardo Bautista, director of the UIS School of Industrial Design.
The tool, called Operation Chameleon, is aimed at high school students and first university semesters.
“This video game allows participants to assume different roles – as civilian, military, guerrilla or paramilitary – to face different situations. At the end, the player reflects on his or her decisions and actions,” explained Francisco Giraldo, a professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the Metropolitan Institute of Technology.
The teachers emphasized that the results of the project are highly satisfactory, the fruit of collaborative work and the commitment to innovate in pedagogical tools in line with new technologies.
“An added value of this project is the interdisciplinary nature. It was fantastic teamwork. As coordinator, I am grateful for the support of all the researchers from the participating institutions. We managed to work in complete harmony,” added Andrés Vergara, professor of Journalism and Literature at the University of Antioquia.
The event was attended by several secondary school teachers, who highlighted the usefulness of this type of initiative for teaching subjects such as Social Sciences and Humanities.
“I am very happy with the result of this project. I welcome this tool with a strong applause, because one of the great challenges we have in the classroom is to train a post-peace agreement generation, which unfortunately knows very little about the armed conflict in the country,” said Carlos Moreno, a teacher at Colegio Cooperativo Comfenalco.
The Operation Chameleon tool is available for consultation through the following link: https://www.testimoniosdepaz.co/
