Comments on Context: Great Rift Valley

The Great Rift Valley is tied to the evolution of humanity. Some of the significant  early hominid bones were recovered in this part of Africa.

It also represents evolution for me because this picture shows grasslands, not trees. The proper image for evolution is grass--bushes, maybe--but not trees.

Until the last decade evolution was portrayed as a tree with a simple source branching out into diverse branches. Stephen Jay Gould has argued, however, that the better model is that of grasses or a bush. There is diversification, even from the beginning, which then is pruned or continues branching.

View of an eastern branch of the Great Rift Valley seen on the road from Nairobi.

And what does this have to do with online education?

When you were a younger student did you ever have to do outlines for your papers?

I.
   A.
   B.
       1.
       2.
          a.
          b.
II.                                      ...and so on.

We were all taught that this is how we should organize our thoughts and present our ideas. And it works most of the time. We have a central thesis and establish it through the progressive refinements.  But doesn't the outline format look a lot like the discredited "tree of evolution"? Really, our thoughts are like evolution--lots of diversification of ideas that get pruned down or keep spreading out. Perhaps we need to think of new ways to present our thinking--not with one main line of argument with all its little branches, not just sequentially (as in lectures)--but somehow more like a bush or web.