We are studying education in my Intermediate Norwegian class, so I am posting some of the best videos I have found about Norwegian colleges and universities.

Høgskolen i Telemark

Andre lenker:

• Karakterer
• Andre filmer
  

Gaffeltrøkk Driving Mand (Black Debbath)

I will be doing the annual update of the Norsknett blog during the period June 4 to August 15, 2010.  All the material on the blog will remain, but I am rearranging some of it and adding more.  If you have trouble finding anything, just send me an e-mail (aarsvoln@stolaf.edu).

Takk, og god sommer!

Since Norway won the Eurovision Song Contest last year, Oslo will be the site of this year's competition.  There will be two semi-final broadcasts on May 25 and 27, and then the Grand Final event will take place on Saturday, May 29 with 20 acts that qualified through the semi-finals and the five pre-qualified countries — Norway (the host country), France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

During the next two months, I will be posting YouTube videos of Norway's participants from 1960 to today.  To learn more about the Eurovision Song Contest and Norway's contributions, see the following websites: Eurovision Song Contest 2010 / Norway's Historical Profile / Diggiloo Thrush (Eurovision history, lyrics, and trivia) / Diggiloo Thrush — Norway

Norway 1960: Nora Brockstedt — "Voi voi" (4th place)
Music and lyrics by Georg Elgaaen

Teksten til sangen (link to a translation of the song to English):

Voi, voi! Høyt oppi fjellet, 
hører du denne hilsen fra meg?
Voi, voi! Jeg vil fortelle
at jeg venter på deg.

I en liten dal langt mot nord
der hvor solen lyser natten lang.
I en liten dal langt mot nord
hørte jeg en samepike sang.

Sangen var visst kommet med en vind.
Søndervinden tok den over havet.
Piken var så lys og lett til sinn,
og rytme fikk hun visst i vuggegave.

I en liten dal glad som få
hørte jeg en sang som lød som så.

Voi, voi! Høyt oppi fjellet
hører du denne hilsen fra meg?
Voi, voi! Jeg vil fortelle
at jeg venter på deg.

Voi, voi! Tiden står stille
når jeg venter på kjæresten min.
Voi, voi! Skjebnen vår ville
at jeg skulle bli din.

Voi, voi! Om noen dager
er det lørdag, du vet!
Voi, voi! Da vil en fager drøm
bli virkelighet.

Voooi! Snart vil du komme
ned til dalen med kjæresten din.
Voi voi! Uken er omme.
Lørdagskvelden blir fin.
Lørdagskvelden blir fin.

Voi, voi! Om noen dager
er det lørdag, du vet!
Voi, voi! Da vil en fager drøm
bli virkelighet.

Voooi! Snart vil du komme
ned til dalen med kjæresten din.
Voi voi! Uken er omme.
Lørdagskvelden blir fin.
Lørdagskvelden blir fin.
Lørdagskvelden blir fin.

Voi, voi!

Last semester, I taught Norwegian 253, a fifth-semester Norwegian language and culture class that focuses on contemporary Norway.  At the end of the semester, the students did two projects instead of a final exam. 

For the first project, the students divided into pairs and interviewed six native Norwegian students who attend St. Olaf.  Each interview was videotaped and lasted approximately 15 minutes.  The students were required to have an introduction, questions about each of the four main topics we examined during the semester (politics & democracy, family & the local community, education & economy, and language & culture), follow-up questions, transitions between the sections, and a conclusion.  We were all happy about how the interviews turned out.  There were, of course, many similarities in the way the Norwegians answered the questions, but there were also significant differences in perspectives on politics, education, and dialects.  Three of the Norwegians were from the Oslo area, but the other three spoke dialects from Bergen, Sauda, and Snåsa.  The American students had improved their listening skills significantly during the course of the semester and had learned about many new aspects of Norwegian society, so they were excited to discover that they could understand the Norwegians so well and could follow the discussions of abstract issues as well as the everyday topics.

The second project was to create a digital story by writing a text, creating a slideshow of photos in iMovie (or a similar program), and then adding audio narration. The students watched several examples of digital stories on the web, including the three posted below.

Fortellingen om Hadia Tajik

Helens stemme

Lasse Gjertsen: Jeg går en tur

Student Examples

Some of the students uploaded their digital stories to YouTube, so here are some examples of the student work.  The students chose their own topics, wrote their own texts, and created the digital stories by combining photos and audio narration.  The texts were relatively brief -- approximately one page -- and most of the videos were about 3 minutes in length.

Anna: Historien om en boknerd

Emma: Familien min

Caroline: Jeg liker å gå på tur

Evert: Kjenner du denne byen?

Maren: Min opplevelse i Norge

If you are interested in learning about Norwegian Christmas traditions and singing Norwegian Christmas songs, check out the online Advent Calendar for Norwegian Language Learners.  This project is a cooperative venture between the St. Olaf College Norwegian Department, NorWords, and Norsknett.