In this time of supercomplexity as a consequence of the technological development the computer is perceived as way, tool, and facilitator of diffusing knowledge. It is no doubt about the importance of the metaphor in contemporary fields: philosophy of language, philosophy of minds, philosophy of science, epistemology, learning, poetics, aesthetics, in psychology, in media, and so on. From rhetoric considerations we specify that this study does not intend to offer a semiotics of art because we use the metaphor as a vehicle of communication. Beyond its literal and aesthetic content the metaphor has a cognitive meaning and we substantiate this by claiming the metaphor's content from the vantage point of epistemology. It is most plausible that the symbolic interpretations reveals the connections between what is taught in Romanian schools and extending the use of the computers to teacher's or student's home day by day. The task formulated -identifying one metaphor for the computer functioning- refers to a problem solving because the problem here is to recognize, to define, and to represent the computer. Because of the perspectives irreconcilables between electronic pattern of the computer and its metaphoric thinking the target population was invited to clearly explain in words the meaning of their metaphor. In terms of research methodology these requirement is elicited for the argument that the comprehention of metaphor is not an universally generalizable process and the cognitive representations of the computer are variables by individual metaphoric thinking. This paper investigates the cognitive reorientation about the computer of teachers using key epistemological metaphors.The qualitative analysis shows that there clearly are differences between the functions of the computer from the vantage point of standardized view and the practical' interpretation of the target population. As result of analising the computers' functions relating day by day use the images of working the computer (computer as metaphor) delineated are following: the informational metaphor, the educational metaphor, the psychological metaphor, the effect metaphor, the visual metaphor.

computer; technological innovations; epistemological metaphor; qualitative analysis