FonTV: Amazing student-led learning providing an amazing service to the school

FonTV started in the autumn 2018 by former Technology teacher Luis Zumárraga and his brother Pablo Zumárraga with the aim of stimulating interest in film-making among students, as well as having a team to cover events at school. The first group was made up of ten students, who were trained by Pablo in an intensive course. All the material that FonTV had in these early days was financed by ISP as part of a project in which the school submitted a proposal that would differentiate the school in the local area. As a consequence, our school became a pioneer with its proposal for a “MediaLab”. In the following years, with the invaluable support of Luis, Marko Fernández, one of the first ten members, took on the training and recruitment of new members, as well as the general coordination of the team and in time became the team’s leader. In recent years, this position has been taken on by Sergio Pérez, who is the current leader of FonTV. This position is being transferred from ‘generation’ to ‘generation’ by the students, which enables the members to pass on the skills and knowledge to new recruits. The next student-leaders to take over will be Pablo Martin, Mario Labad and Elisa González. In this way, at FonTV we collaborate with students from all courses and we all learn from each other.

FonTV has already been going for five years, throughout this time there has been a clear evolution in the quality and professionalism of each of its projects.  For example, it has gone from working with a basic video editor such as iMovie, to using a professional tool such as the Creative Cloud suite. Likewise, this  year the team has been provided with a laptop so that they can make use of these tools while on the go. Apart from the  technical aspect,  the immense experience and skills that the students have been gathering throughout these years should not be ignored.  FonTV continues to improve and one of the plans for the future is to take charge of broadcasting some of the events live to a professional standard so that parents who cannot attend in person can see what happens almost as if they were there.

FonTV is a fundamental pillar of learning for many of the students who are part of this project. While they acquire skills such as learning to edit with professional programs such as Adobe Premiere, After Effects and Blender, they learn to work as a team, develop problem-solving skills and generate a personal style of film-making. FonTV  not only showcases  “Amazing Learning” but it is also an example of it since students learn skills at such a level that they surprise themselves, the school and their families. Such is the importance of FonTV, that after Marko’s departure from the school he continues to be connected to this project.  Marko is currently studying a degree in Production of Audiovisuals and Shows as a result of the interest that FonTV stimulated.

In the five years that  FonTV has been going,  it has been a resounding success. This is partly due the fact that although Luis Zumárraga was in charge of supervising all the projects, he gave the students the confidence to be able to make the necessary  decisions and to work autonomously.

In my case, I joined FonTV more than a year and a half ago because Luis, a former technology teacher, encouraged me to do so, something for which I will be eternally grateful. My first task when I joined in  June 2021 was to film the Primary School musical  that year – a parody of a Spanish television program called “Tu Cara Me Suena”. During that week of recording and editing, the members of the team taught me the basics of editing and filming events from which I was able to develop my knowledge, skills and understanding. In addition to learning, it was undoubtedly the best week I have spent at school, where I met students from different years with whom I shared and still share great moments. Thanks to the perseverance and determination to improve, I have managed to have the pleasure of being able to lead an incredible team.

 

Article written by Sergio Pérez with collaboration from Marko Fernández