Let me try.
For me learning begins firstly with the educational materials, the content. When the content is well structured, I feel comfortable and I find a clear direction. What the objectives are, what I am learning and more specially why I am learning.
Once this is clear to me, then I feel confident enough about the topic to start investigation and to start digger deeper in the subject. I am then open to any type of query and I know that I have a sound base on which to build up my knowledge.
Without a good clear direction, I would still be able to surf from the internet, but without being able to differentiate between what is relevant and what is for general information. At the end I would still be somewhere where I initially started with the learning process, i.e, not very far.
mnowbuth 