How often are you given a chance to pursue something great at a young age? The opportunity suddenly knocks at your door without warning and voila!
You are catapulted to a world of wonders. You might have been exposed to the idea of videos already, but for your idea to materialize from nothing to something is really like Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “hitching your wagon to a star.”
As Gene Wilder sings in Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory, “Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination. Take a look and you’ll see into your imagination.”
Five high school and four college students, including a participant from the non-government organization were given an opportunity to undergo a week of intense training on digitization thru a selective process. As the tech world would describe it, “Digitization is a process of converting information whether in photos or words into a digital format. The result is the representation of an object, image, sound, document, or signal obtained by generating a series of numbers that describe a discrete set of points or samples.”
The one-week “Digitization – Video editing Seminar-Workshop” was part of the donation from SM Supermalls personally signed by President Steven Tan and given to the Board of Trustees of the Baguio Museum in November 2022.
This was in response to the clamor of the Baguio Museum to digitalize the museum library thru state-of-the-art laptops that could be used for its programs, researches and presentations – a brain child of Vice-President Edilberto Tenefrancia.
Added to the financial assistance was a program to train students on digitalization, and they could re-echo their experience to their schoolmates, schools or institutions.
The museum then got master trainer Abigail Lara, a veteran videographer, editor and producer whose experience included stints in GMA7 and the Probe Team. The mentors invited were resource persons Mervine Aquino, who taught the technical aspects and Chino Chow, disc jockey, vlogger and an expert on the advantages of social media.
Museum Assistant Curator Gemma Estolas was the project coordinator with Jocelyn Gardingan as the project facilitator.
The chosen students were Lovie Jane Dangoy from the Breakfast Feeding For Learning Inc., Deane Mischa Carreon Raczha Lauryn Albano Josfer Keil Papay Shaina Mae Basilio Shanice Lael Lagera from the Baguio City National High School, Special Performing Arts – Media Arts under mentor Esti Mendoza.
The college students were Angel Weiah Magastino and Jaebez Rezia Pio from the University of Baguio; Jorge Christian dela Cruz from the Saint Louis University; and Ronn Jee Agan from the Baguio College of Technology.
“We are happy and honored with this partnership with the Baguio Museum. We have much appreciation for arts and culture this City holds,” stated SM Assistant Mall Manager Michael Jason Pena, in his speech during the closing ceremony last Sunday.
“We are certain that our students or the workshop graduates will utilize the skills they learned to contribute to the City’s creative economic landscape. We shall continue to take initiatives that will help towards cultural preservation and protection,” he added.
The project was fully supported by SM Mall Manager Rona Correa with Marketing Manager Lainey Magboo-del Rosario and Marketing Office Faith Villegas.
Deanne and Raczha expressed their appreciation on the training and experience of a healthy, fun and enjoyable workshop. The participants were thankful for the opportunity given. They felt pressure and anxiety at the beginning of the program, being introduced to new video knowledge.
Deanne and Raczha later found out that the time allotted was “kulang” or insufficient in the end. The parents themselves were surprised at the progress of their children’s learning and jokingly said that it was their time to learn from their children.
I believe that this digitization workshop made an impact in the social milieu and technical knowledge of the students. It was surely a stepping stone for further learning and sharing. Hopefully there will be more sponsors for future projects, so the museum could continue teaching and training students and young professionals on how to promote and preserve culture and how to apply their new skills onto their projects through documentation and videos.
Yes graduates. Hitch your wagons to the stars! And we hope to see the fruition of your dreams in five years.
