Analogy

Over the last few weeks, I have been struggling with developing a clear method of explaining to others the multiple aspects of technology in educational settings. There are many layers of technology associated with education, health care in general, and nursing in particular. In addition, there are increasing numbers of adjunct strata associated with technical support from vendors who have their own research and development (R&D) departments, sales and marketing people, and very different long-term goals. Some vendors even have personnel employed full-time on university campuses to assist in the complex interfaces that have to take place. Finally, there are the money people who are willing to partner demonstration and research initiatives and are based in both the private and public sectors of the economy. A thorough explanation of this entire complex picture was taking many pages of documentation, and I was intending to make a simple presentation. I tried to solve this dilemma by using an analogy. Analogies are parallel representations that purport to add clarity. For the complex situation that I have minimally described, I started with the idea of a mosaic. This worked for a short time when I was discipline focused, but as I added education, research, and service to the picture, the onedimensional approach was no longer viable. Then I looked at a diamond ring and watched the multiple reflections from the different facets. The notion of light reflecting through a prism enlarged this idea. Every different angle of light altered the whole area of reflection, and the reflection could be seen simultaneously in many dimensions. This seemed to incorporate all