Summary: Communications and learning can be quite different face-to-face versus face-to-book or face-to-screen. I try to make this clear by examining our subsurface reactions to the two sorts of communication and then move on to share a few ideas about learning in context as opposed to bookish, screenish or, if you like, stand-alone, prose-based learning.

First Prose-Only versus In-context (or in situ) Communication

What does one get, and how, from hearing a phrase or paragraph in a live conversation that can't be extracted by reading a prose transcription of the same words (on paper or screen)?

Inputs available for consideration:

Words, choice of words, syntax,etc. (i.e.,that which CAN be read on paper or on the screen). Over time, even within a single extended communication, situational and topical phrasing will begin to be predictable; variations from predicted pattern will signal issues of mental state, intent, distraction etc. Not particularly available to participant in first communication (unless quite extended) but increasingly available as mutual conversational experience is accumulated.

Inflections and tone. Variations within portions of the conversation. Variations when either (a) compared with the norm of past conversations ( or even earlier portions of the same conversation) with this person , or (b) variations from the norm for people with voices of her/his range and sonority will tell us about this person and his/her feelings.

Body talk. Eye contact, gestures, body language and use of the joint space of the conversation will all tell us about intensity, comfort, wish to relate to you as a person (accept, dominate, fear, etc.)

Online communication is less likely to provide a fully dimensioned, or 'signed' feel and value to a message. Exactly the same words from your acquaintance of twenty years and, say , an accumlated shared and varied experiencing of life of over 2000 hours, will be given different weight than those of an online acquaintance with whom you've shared 6 exchanges of messages. But, hmmm, forget that, it involves a shared history (Save that one for later).

A comparison of your 'take' on the following message from an acquaintance, apropos of your nervousness about a suggested boating experience. This is the message:

"I'll be right there in the boat; you can count on me to get you out of the water if you fall overboard!"

In the first case the statement is made by a cafe acquantance you've met three times and with whom you exchanged six paragraphs of conversation concerning weblogging technique; in the second situation you received the message from someone with whom you've exchanged the same paragraphs over weblogging technique via email. Everything else being equal, whether you to believe or don't believe your cafe acquaintance you will have more confidence in your decision about her/him than whatever decision you make with regard to your online collaborator. Why?

Think about it (he says, rhetorically ;->] ). Which person do you better "know" [in the trust with your life sense]. I would argue that I know the first one better. I know that person with all my senses and with multiple layers of my brain (not just the portion that can talk, read and write).

And if we have a shared life history (as in the discarded example above) Our confidence in and willingness to make decisions to trust another with our own welfare will be even stronger. We are, after all, ecologically bred and selected beings who've recently become fascinated with our own words. Until the last 10,000 years or so those words were simply underlines or attachments to decisions made using many other signals. With writing, printing, industrialization, cultural homogenization, etc. words change their place, I suspect, in the overall scheme of things. One could say that they've become self-important beyond their strength.

If am to trust, deeply trust, another I must know them in context. That pronouncement courtesy of my chromosomes . Another being is fully understood in context, through their history, their actions, as a fully fleshed character. And it's the known, fully-fleshed character that the wise person will trust/not trust with confidence. Two paragraphs ago I used the phrase trust with your life literally as in trusting someone to preserve your life. What about trusting a person to extend and enhance your life?

Second: Prose-based versus In Context (in situ) Learning

An example of enhancing life? Expanding the systems within which one can function, expanding the opportunities to gain security, protection, food are examples. And acquiring the knowledge to do so is learning! Learning to function more comfortably within present systems or at some level in systems never before accessed are examples. If we had our choice of people to learn with/from we would pick those we can assess in the context of their life and life space. The reasons for doing so are, by now, familiar: we have more tools, more layers and sections of our brain which can be applied to the question of 'trust'; thus we will more effectively pick a person from whom we believe we can learn.

If you look at everything we've ever learned, if you dissected each individual's knowledge base one artifact at a time, you would, I believe, find that the bulk of our learning is done on our own or in association with those not known as teachers. Clearly we learn with or without teachers! [I suspect "independent learner" is the term applied to individuals who can learn (or who learn espectially well) from others who are not designated as teachers.]

Suppose you were going to learn from another person, but not one designated as a teacher. Examples of things to learn (just so you have a cluster of ideas in mind) might be "pipe fitting" or "singing in harmony" or "meditation" . A person to learn from would a) be 'good' at the skill you're interested in and b) allow the independent learner to watch, imitate, listen and ask questions.

Without ever hearing "pipe fitting" theory, without ever reading and with only occasional questions an independent learner will construct personal pipe fitting principles, try them out, refine them, watch and listen and ask more, and will at some point move to a more satisfactory competence. S/he does all of this learning using cues taken from:

careful observation of behavior,

listening to and inferring from answers to questions and

uses of senses and interpersonal understanding to drive activities in the items above.

Unlike the person learning from book or even lecture the independent learner has access to a fully competent "pipe fitter" constantly solving pipe-fitting problems in a variety of circumstances. If there's some kind of trade for the opportunity to learn from the expert (e.g., helping out while you learn) we may call the learner an apprentice.

If you acquire money or fame as a result of the learning we may call you a researcher. Otherwise your life is simply fuller and more satisfying; others, if asked, call you competent.

Afterword: L Efimova's comments re conditions for growth of her own ideas was the initial seed for these thoughts.