Feedback plays an essential role in the learning that occurs on life support courses. Since 2007 the preferred method of managing feedback has been the learning conversation, but it remains an area that many facilitators profess to finding challenging. In this article we will explore how simple conversational techniques involved in active listening can lead to significant learning.

It is with some pleasure that we were given the opportunity to offer this paper for commentary and we are grateful for the efforts made by readers to help us to refine our thinking. Given the constraints of space, we will respond to the main comments in turn. We plan to submit a more considered and elegant paper to a future edition when we have worked more on our model.As we are aware, the use of learning technologies is untheoretical, although informed by a number of theories from a variety of disciplines. Part of our thinking was based on a desire to integrate some of these and work towards explanations for what we had seen going on in the courses that we were involved in teaching. That this is recognized in the commentary is much appreciated.Our failure to describe action science in more detail was a product of pressure on space. Briefly, action science, was developed as 'the science of interpersonal action' and is 'centrally concerned with the practice of intervention' (Argyris, Putnam and Smith, 1986: 35) into frequently mismatched espoused theories and theories in use. The development of skill in action science relates to capacity for reflective action; not only reflection on action but also reflection on reflection in action. This is achieved by making theories of action explicit through the presentation and interrogation of case studies.The absence of examples from the data was the product of limitations on space. Other papers we have written for conferences make more explicit the relationship between our thinking and the data (see for example Davis and Denning, 2000).

In this paper we consider one asynchronaus computer conference and begin to define, within this context, some of the issues which set the virtual classroom apart from the traditional classroom. The repercussions of using a text-based medium are profound. We have focused on the ways that silence is experienced; the equality which occurs when all participants are dependent on the written word; and the added importance attributed to tutor comments as a result of being written. We have also considered a broader definition of the role of the conference moderator after Berge (1995) in order to continue the process of enquiry into the possibilities of the role.

It is with some pleasure that we were given the opportunity to offer this paper for commentary and we are grateful for the efforts made by readers to help us to refine our thinking. Given the constraints of space, we will respond to the main comments in turn. We plan to submit a more considered and elegant paper to a future edition when we have worked more on our model

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