Browsing by Subject "visuaalisuus"

The goal of this thesis was to find out what kind of visual representations the sixth graders classrooms have. The aim also was to research how and by whom the visual representations are formed and what kind of aims objects and pictures of classrooms have from the point of teaching and education. In addition, this thesis is looking for an answer to what is a dream come true classroom in pupils visions. There are only few studies about classrooms from the point of visuality or aesthetics. The data were collected in May 2011 in Kainuu and in May 2012 in Helsinki. Six sixth graders classrooms were photographed and six class teachers working in photographed classrooms were interviewed. According to that the data was also collected by interviewing ten pupils from three classrooms in Helsinki in May 2012. The visual data was analyzed by content analysis and the interview data by discourse analysis. The visual representations in classrooms have been formed from basic school furnitures and from the objects and pictures which teachers have brought to the classrooms or which have been in the classrooms before teachers even have been working in there. Also the seating arrangements affect to visual representations forming. Pupils' role is to make art, presentations and posters and in some cases also hang them on the classroom walls - but often following rules given by the teacher. Visual representations with pedagogical goals are such as student work, maps and books. Those pictures and objects are teaching and learning tools. Visual representations with educational goals are for example student work, timetables and common rules of the school. The educational goals seem to relate to behaviour control and evaluation. Pupils dream about classrooms that support action. On the basis of the collected data, it seems that teachers are not aware of the visual impact of their classrooms visual representations and neither of the visual representations possibilities in teaching and education. This thesis gives information about sixth graders classrooms as a visual learning environment. It also points out the areas where teachers should pay attention when organizing and decorating classrooms in the way that supports learning and increases school enjoyment.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the importance and usability of social media and visuality in home economics. The starting points of the study are the coverage of social media content in relation to home economics’ content areas and the use of social media in home economics. In terms of significance and usability, visuality, that is interpretation and viewing of an image, is playing a major role. Images, which are shared under the name of home economics, give viewers different purposes, and settle into the stream of the image sharing service. According to studies, increasing of social media use has led to browsing where inter-est towards an image and first impression are important. The purpose of sharing images can have many meanings in home economics’ phenomena and home economical thinking. This study focuses on the images shared by the teachers in the image sharing service in social media and the teacher’s images analysed by the pupils. The pupils are looking at the images and interpreting them. The qualitative study used images shared by home economics teachers, from which 50 pub-licly shared images were selected. The images were analysed with qualitative content analy-sis. From the public images, 30 images were selected for the deeper analysis. During the analysis, 11 images with the most answers were selected, and based on these images the themes for reviewing the results were obtained. The teachers’ images which were analysed according to home economics’ content areas mainly produced a result with connection to Food competence and food culture. Other areas occurred only a little in data. In the images selected by the pupils, the content areas appeared similarly. In the interpretation and viewing of the images, 6 themes were selected as the main themes, and based on the main themes analysis of the pupils’ responses was made. The themes were first impression and standing out from the image stream; aesthetics and beauty; knowledge and skill; communality; interest as well as emotions and feelings. The conclusions of the results were: the images shared in social media were mostly related to the content area of Food competence and food culture. The pupils also selected most of the images related to that content area. Through the pupils’ interpretation and viewing of the images, or visuality skills, the teachers can explore their own work and the images they share. For the pupils, the meaning of the image, the interest, and the cultural view of the image, can be very individual.