something's rotten

I have been walking a lot during this year's first month. It's nothing revolutionary, nothing new. It gives me time to listen to great music - and space and time to think. Recently I've been thinking about my profession.

I'm a teacher. Norway's prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, announced in his New Years speech that Norway has to put more emphasize on education since Norwegian students and pupils alike are falling behind in European tests like PISA. Media goes bananas and tells us that our kids are lazy, dumb and not motivated for school. Furthermore, school is a joke, a playground, a place to keep our children when we work and make our way up the career ladder. And even more importantly, society blames the politicians and politicians blame schools and their teachers. There is no more discipline, teachers are not well educated and they cannot handle our children in a responsible way... Reform panic has created mayhem, it's all chaos. Doom's day is here.

I agree, something IS definitely rotten in Norway.

We're too well off. We're a playground. We're the laughing stock of the new century. And why? We have the fatal impression that we're all well off because of our newfound wealth. This leads to the ill conclusion among many that they'll be okay whatever work they put into school. Look at our university system, it's easy to sleep through it and get by, and if you flunk? Well, you'll be okay. Of course, a handsome few make the best out of it and excel within their fields. It's not all bleak. But many, many kids lack motivation, they see the world of consumerism around them and they are fed up on new iPods and flatscreens every Christmas. What's the point of learning about history and science when you'll be a real estate agent like your father? Next, parents are shying away from their real responsibility here. Unfortunately, it's often the men. 3 out of 4 parents who are involved in their kids school are mothers... Where are the damn fathers? Are they really too busy for their own kids' education?

The responsibility is shared for the situation. It's society's problem, it's my problem and it's your problem. We're all in it knee deep. The irony is, we live in high times, salary is good and there's cash flow for most people - and when a country runs well, especially in Norway we doze off in the global race of educational excellence. Look at India and China, there it is a matter of life and death. A matter of happiness and desperation. If you don't succeed in your field you're out of the game.

In Norway, we have the impression that we're all in the game. Problem is, we're stuck on level 1 for now. And who will suffer? Our kids, and then our society.

I'll try to do my best, try a little harder everyday, teach our kids to excel, to be good citizens and above all - good human beings. And I'll keep on walking.

in the press

Artikkelen Åpenbaringer i Transkaukasia kom på trykk i Dagsavisens søndagsutgave sist helg og ligger nå ute på nett.

Det er akkurat ganske nøyaktig ett år siden planleggingen av fjorårets tourcaucasus begynte og det er moro å se at artikkelen endelig fant et hjem. Sysler med noen nye idéer til andre reisereportasjer - jeg har funnet gleden i å skrive igjen ved siden av å ta bilder. Det er en fin kombinasjon og ikke minst... en åpenbaring.

God tur!

white spaces

winter's first alpine adventure in åre, sweden, tastes good - finding peace and enjoying life's good gifts

Pressemelding

... two days to go
Originally uploaded by mortsan.

Look Up, Look Out - en fotoutstilling om å løfte blikket
Fotografier av fotografene David Shanks og Morten Oddvik

Bakklandet Skydstasjon
Åpner Lørdag 19.01.2008


Utstillingen fokuserer på arbeidene til to Trondheimstilhørende herrer med fotografi som et stort kreativt fokus. Utstillingen inneholder fotografier fra Japan, Kina, Georgia, Egypt, Skottland, Frankrike og Trondheimsprovinsen Svartlamon samt andre Trondheimsbydeler.

Fotografiene er i hovedsak i svart-hvitt og utstillingens tittel henspiller på å løfte blikket for den observante vandrer, den som reiser i gjennom, den stundesløse, den rastløse, øyet bak kameraet. For den som evner å se forbi hverdagens og stereotypenes slør kan se de små glipene, hakkene, imperfeksjonene og alt det iboende vakre i nettopp det som unnslipper.

Samtidig har fotografiene en løs referanseramme rundt forholdet mellom subjekt og objekt, hvordan påvirker fotografens inntreden i scenen? I hvor stor grad forandres motivet med fotografens blikk og den som etterpå studerer fotografiet?

Fotografiske åpenbaringer på Baklandet Skydstasjon fra lørdag 19.01.2008.

Happy New Year!

Goodbye 2007, welcome 2008! Feeling good. :-)

Look Up, Look Out

Look Up, Look Out
Originally uploaded by mortsan.

On January 19th 2008 I will co-exhibit a photography exhibition together with David Shanks. The exhibition is titled Look Up, Look Out and will focus on black and white photography. Thematically photos are best described as trying to explore solitude in urban environments and the relationship between subject and photographer.

I believe we have some fantastic photos to show the curious visitor, so if you're in Trondheim in Januar/February please stop by at beautiful Baklandet Skydsstasjon and have a look at the exhibition and eat the fantastic fish soup.

Happy Holidays!



Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR. My photos from the exhibition.

Let it snow, let it snow

Listening to Chris Isaak while traveling by train through gorgeous Norwegian winterclad landsscape. Looking greatly forward to come home this year. Merry Christmas, everyone

The Florida of Europe

Beach huts on Lido
Originally uploaded by mortsan.

In an interesting article at Herald Tribune Italy is discussed as one of the once great European nations that has fallen greatly behind. Tourists flock there to take in the natural and cultural beauty of a nation which has stalled.

Business is bad, no innovation, families decreasing and young people fearing the future. What happened along the way?

Thinking back at my working days in Venezia, described by the International Herald Tribune as a beautiful corpse, Italy might suffer the same destiny - becoming a Florida of Europe - trampled and humiliated by hordes of tourists visiting an open air museum.

And as La Bella Italia dies, small gems awake - head off to stunning Slovenia next time for a different experience. Meanwhile, lets hope Italy will experience a miracle in the near future. Magari.

dumb and dumber?

Here's a thought:
Internet and blogging make us dumb... and dumber. I have a past as a firm tech-skeptic, but got turned over after living in Tokyo. Technology and in particular Internet has transformed how humans interact and communicate. This year's Nobel Prize winner in literature, Doris Lessing, is not impressed. She believes that it has stalled intelligent dialogue and debate. Commentator and author Andrew Keen has criticized the Web 2.0.-development and the "cult of the amateur", including schmucks like me who blogs for nobody. Mrs. Lessing and Mr. Keen thinks the Internet has spawn a generation of semi-thinking individuals with superficial knowledge of their cultural inheritance.

If anyone cares... I agree and disagree.

Personally, reading books and immerse myself in meaningful intelligent pursuit of knowledge have been increasingly harder after the intertextual multimediality of the web with constant IM, mobile communications etc. On the other hand, it has given me the opportunity to access a global community of information and communication with people with shared interests and shared past through social networks such as Flickr and Facebook. It has given me the opportunity to build knowledge together with others through communities like Wikipedia, and as a teacher I have helped students find an enthusiasm for writing through blogging.

There's a lot of BS out here, and a lot of meaningless gibberish, but that's nothing new in human activity. I'm an optimist, and I believe the likes of Mrs. Lessing and Mr. Keen tend to have valid points, but lack to see the full potential for meaningful discourse and communication through the advances of technology. A, to me, new magazine (printed and an innovative online edition) named Monocle is an example of this. Covering a vast area of topics ranging from politics and culture to architecture and design it has an interesting look at the near future. Have a look!

flickr/places

I've been an avid Flickr user for a couple of years now, and the online photo storage/stream service keeps on improving. The latest offering is online in-house photo editing called Picnik, but personally, as a globetrotting geography lover, I dig the new Places feature under the Explore flag.

Type in a place and you'll get the best from this particular place. A great way to research before any holiday-making. I'm proud to discover too of course that my good friend, larskflem and myself are featured photographers of our hometown Horten, while my sister's eminent photographing boyfriend Mixmaster has the featured interestingness photo on the same page. Yeah!

Web 2.0 Cocktail

The ECIS conference in Madrid has presented me with many inspiring and enlightening lectures and workshops amid a flow of high expertise and know-how. The entitled workshop Web 2.0 Cocktail enticed me and was exactly what it advertised to be: a cocktail: short 'n' sweet, creating a buzz and leaving you wanting more.

A great mix of teachers and IT directors from international schools in France, Czech Rep, Austria and Quatar gave the audience a brief lowdown on what's moving and shaking online in terms of the woed and much talked about web 2.0 and how to incorporate it in your lessons and use it as a pedagogical tool in a responsible and efficient way.

A range of resources were revealed as well as a great amount of online sites were discussed and presented. Social networking websites like Ning, Linkend, Flickr, Myspace, Facebook and Second Life were given attention and examples were given on how teachers have used these virtual environments to initiate student-generated projects across the globe. International students in Prague had an ongoing project with two schools in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, on Ning where they posted videocasts, communicated on IM and collaborated on essays.

The inspiring Julie Lindsay, Head of IT at Qatar Academy, focused on wikis and blogs in the classroom. She pinpointed the incredible wave of pedagogical tools in the surge of the web 2.0 and mentioned resources for adventurous teachers such as Mashable, Five Sites, Go2Web2.0, and Atomic Learning. Mrs. Lindsay has spent the past years on research and utilization of wikis in schools - wikis that work - for student-based project work. A great place to start is Wikispaces for teachers, whereas PBWiki and WetPaint can be great starting points as well. Mrs. Lindsay did close her contribution to the Web 2.0 cocktail session with a tribute to Twitter and the curious phenomenon of miniblogging - oddly enough I was the only one in the crowd twittering.

Chris Chater had a nice run-through on Audio 2.0 and excellent web tools for the music teacher. The cute and funny Flashy Horses from Sweden is definitely an online classic. Mr. Chater did devote most of his time to the value of podcasts in teaching, and pulled out of hi sleeve online resources like Podcasting Tools, Odeo, Podproducer and the very interesting newcomer Gabcast - a no-nonsese way of podcasting directly from your mobile phone to the web.

On an end note Google Docs and Zoho were discussed. Particularly interesting was Barbara Stefanics' keynote on the cautious first steps to using web 2.0. tools in the classroom. She had her class set up an Gmail account each before she opened a document in Google Docs and invited them all in. She posted questions and her 12 students responded in real time to them. A genuine act of dynamic word processing was unfolding - and that's just the beginning.

There's a lot of hype on the sexiness of web 2.0., but used in the right ways for the right purposes it might very well be the transitional bridge into the 21st century that flabbergasted teachers have been looking for.

Just walkin'

Just walkin'
Originally uploaded by mortsan.

As I walked out tonight in the mystic garden
The wounded flowers were dangling from the vines
I was passing by yon cool and crystal fountain
Someone hit me from behind

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Through this weary world of woe
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
No one on earth would ever know

They say prayer has the power to help
So pray from the mother
In the human heart an evil spirit can dwell
I'm trying to love my neighbor and do good unto others
But oh, mother, things ain't going well

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
I'll burn that bridge before you can cross
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
They'll be no mercy for you once you've lost

Now I'm all worn down by weepin'
My eyes are filled with tears, my lips are dry
If I catch my opponents ever sleepin'
I'll just slaughter them where they lie

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Through the world mysterious and vague
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Walking through the cities of the plague

The whole world is filled with speculation
The whole wide world which people say is round
They will tear your mind away from contemplation
They will jump on your misfortune when you're down

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Eatin' hog eyed grease in hog eyed town
Heart burnin' – still yearnin'
Someday you'll be glad to have me around

They will crush you with wealth and power
Every waking moment you could crack
I'll make the most of one last extra hour
I'll avenge my father's death then I'll step back

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Hand me down my walkin' cane
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Got to get you out of my miserable brain

All my loyal and much loved companions
They approve of me and share my code
I practice a faith that's been long abandoned
Ain't no altars on this long and lonesome road

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
My mule is sick, my horse is blind
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Thinkin' ‘bout that gal I left behind

It's bright in the heavens and the wheels are flying
Fame and honor never seem to fade
The fire's gone out but the light is never dying
Who says I can't get heavenly aid?

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Carrying a dead man's shield
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Walkin' with a toothache in my heel

The suffering is unending
Every nook and cranny has it's tears
I'm not playing, I'm not pretending
I'm not nursing any superfluous fears

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Walkin' ever since the other night
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Walkin' ‘til I'm clean out of sight

As I walked out in the mystic garden
On a hot summer day, hot summer lawn
Excuse me, ma'am I beg your pardon
There's no one here, the gardener is gone

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Up the road around the bend
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
In the last outback, at the world's end


Modern Times Bob Dylan

flammende opplevelse

En storveies konsert med Arcade Fire ble meg til dels i går. Selv om det ble en helt annen affære enn konserten på Garage vinteren 2003 tok opplevelsen storslåtte vendinger halvveis ut i Spektrums litt kjølige lokaler. De har steget opp noen divisjoner og fremviste et gjennomført mediashow med filmsnutter, mikrokameraer og en lyssetting kabaretscenen Paris på 20-tallet verdig. Det var børs og katedral, noir og sirkus. Takk Wes & Co for en mektig musikkopplevelse.

Favoritter: Power Out, Oceans of Noise, The Well and the Lightouse, Tunnels og Wake up.

kunst til folket

Når jeg kommer over BBC World gjennom tv-zappinga hender det at jeg kommer over fantastiske programmer. Opplysende og spennende, ting jeg ikke visste at jeg ville vite. Ofte er det repeterende nyheter og bulletiner som minner meg om hotellferie ute i verden med aircon og minibar (de få gangene jeg har opplevd det). Programmet het Imagination og programverten Tim Marlow tok seeren med på en rusletur i Londons gater hvor National Gallery har reprodusert 44 malerier fra sine samlinger. Maleriene er plassert rundt i Londonds gater, fra Soho til Covent Garden. Mr. Marlow presenterte maleriene, historien rundt motivet og kunstneren, fra Velasquez til Monet og fra britisk kunst til italiensk.

Jeg må til London snart.

Kjærligheten er en ensom ting*

Kjærligheten er en ensom ting*
Originally uploaded by mortsan.

Agnar har vært kontroversiell en stund i denne byen. Først i år fikk han sin egen park oppkalt etter seg. Beliggende ved vakre Nidelven og med en park fyllt av hint til hans romaner og noveller. Dette var på tide. Fint er det der og.

Leoparden i boks

palin's on

fredsprisen til al

Gratulerer til Al Gore og FNs klimapanel med Nobels Fredspris - dette er en stor dag for miljøbevegelsen og ikke minst for min gode kamerat Frode Bentsrud - redaktør av den norske utgivelsen "En ubehagelig sannhet".

Nå gjelder det å følge opp det glade budskap og gjøre noe med klimaendringene!

radiohead/inrainbows

Høstferie

Det er så vakkert at det er til å gråte av.