This summer, a group of four St. Olaf students were given the opportunity to work with Kari Lie Dorer, Nancy Aarsvold, and Jenna Coughlin as Curriculum Digitalization Assistants to help with their development of online Norwegian resources for students and teachers. Despite being scattered across the country due to the ongoing pandemic, they worked alongside each other (virtually) to organize and transfer newly developed Norwegian curriculum onto the Godt i gang website. In June, Kari and Nancy led a workshop of Norwegian language professors to develop exercises and activities that can make Norwegian learning and curriculum more accessible to professors and students alike. After the workshop concluded, the group of four student workers helped categorize, organize, and publish this large new collection of exercises for the Godt i gang website.

The Curriculum Digitalization Assistants come from a variety of backgrounds and interests, but all have studied Norwegian in some respect while attending St. Olaf College. This summer work position has fit into each of their goals and interests a little differently.

Sarah Uttormark ‘22 studies Mathematics, Physics, and Norwegian at St. Olaf. Besides spending this summer as a Curriculum Digitalization Assistant, she has previous experience working with St. Olaf’s Norwegian Department as a student worker. She applied for this summer position because she looked forward to an opportunity to share her love of Norway with others. She was particularly excited about the idea of developing new technological tools to help make the language more widely accessible to language students around the world.

Synneva Bratland ‘22, a Norwegian and Math major, has been studying Norway’s language and culture for the last twelve years. Besides her own Norwegian learning, Synneva is passionate about facilitating other people’s learning about Norwegian language and culture and addressing social issues within Norway’s complex history regarding diversity. She decided to work on the Godt i gang curriculum project because she believes it is vital that students are able to learn how Norwegian language and culture interact with both individual identities and global issues involving history, politics, and other disciplines. She has worked as a student grader in St. Olaf’s Norwegian Department. Both Synneva and Sarah have also worked as camp counselors at Skogfjorden, a Norwegian language camp.

Synneva Bratland ‘22 and Sarah Uttormark ‘22 work together from their quarantine pod this summer.

Natalie Flint ‘21 is an Economics and Norwegian major at St. Olaf. Natalie decided to spend this summer working on the GiG curriculum to help keep her Norwegian language abilities up-to-date and to add some fun to her summer. She worked primarily on proofreading and transferring activities and questions from the exercises written by professors during the workshop onto the Godt i gang site. This experience as a Curriculum Digitalization Assistant provided Natalie with more experience using and creating content with the WordPress site while allowing her to maintain her Norwegian skills.

Tienna Brusett ‘22 is majoring in English and Studio Art with a concentration in Nordic Studies. Besides spending the last two years taking Norwegian courses at St. Olaf, she spent the summer taking a 6-week intensive online Norwegian course through the International Summer School at the University of Oslo. She applied to the position as a Norwegian Curriculum Digitalization Assistant because of her excitement and desire to become further involved with Norwegian language learning and the Norwegian department at St. Olaf. This work position provided a wonderful and rewarding opportunity for Tienna to broaden and develop her own knowledge of Norwegian language and culture through working with a curriculum that aims to provide access to that same knowledge to a wide group of students, teachers, and professors.

Tienna Brusett ‘22