Knowledge as a noun

Digital wk2
Knowledge as a noun and knowledge as a verb. What does this mean?
I think that I can understand this with the use of an analogy I read when I was a young teen. I can't remember where I read it to reference but I suspect it was in the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", if my memory serves me well. If a young guy knows how to service motor mower engines he has the knowledge he needs and leaves school. He gets a job in a little shop and plods along quite happily maintaining and repairing mowers. After a while he realises as he works on the machines, that the engines aren't performing as efficiently as he thinks they should. His noun knowledge- that putting the parts together in a certain way makes the machine work - is becoming verb knowledge because he wants to take what he knows and do something to change the way the machine works. He may need to learn more in order to develop his ideas. The knowledge he had becomes the building block to new learning and innovation. He is engaged in learning in a real time context and seeks further education and information to help him develop his concept.
  I hope people can understand what I am meaning here, as I think the ability to get back into education at any stage in your life is possibly the biggest shift we have had. That young man couldn't wait to leave school and get a job, but when a real learning context presented itself he was able to go to Ara or a similar institution and gain the knowledge he needed when he needed it.
Whew!