Knowledge, the ability to communicate and to connect with others has become the main source of economic growth. National and global strategies identify them as main areas for economic growth and focus on the role of knowledge as a guarantee of future economic survival. Knowledge is seen as one of the ways out of the current economic crisis. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays a vital role in this knowledge economy. As the European Commission states, it is “the most important driver of innovation and competitiveness.” (http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/innovation/ict-key-enablers/index_en.htm)

If we accept that essential capabilities in the new economy are things like innovation, communication or the ability to lead oneself (Berardi 2009; Virno 2004 ), we can ask where these capabilities are born. This study approaches school and education as something that constructs subjectivities (Adams St. Pierre 2000; Walkerdine 2004) and is interested in the following question: how is the subjectivity of the knowledge worker constructed?

This paper takes on a fragment of the aforementioned problem by investigating the relationships between students, secondary school classroom and modern ICT technology. The paper focuses specifically on the use of smartphones during class time.

Themes of computer literacy and ICT skills are present in the Finnish secondary school curriculum. So far their implementation has been mostly limited to ICT education and teacher-led projects. In the last few years and even more recently ICT has become a strikingly common feature of contemporary Finnish school since a large number of students carry smartphones. This has a major influence in the classroom.

My thesis is that the way we connect with machines also molds the way we think, act and work (Pasquinelli 2008). Smartphones dramatically change the traditional classroom situation. Classroom as a closed institutional space is being fragmented and opened up. Students connect and communicate with people who are outside the classroom and also outside the school. Classroom space is also being fragmented temporally. Traditional linear classroom time is being substituted by a multitude of parallel virtual times. Students may be simultaneously present in classroom discussion and a number of virtual discussions outside the classroom.

This paper approaches smartphones as machines from two perspectives. 1) What is the relationship between body and machine; how does the machine use the body’s capabilities. How does it make them economically profitable? In other words, how does the machine function as a control technique in the sense proposed by Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault? 2) What kind of agencies do the machines produce? Do they open up new modes of operation or new possibilities for action? What are these?

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