Recently, I found myself testing different timeline creation tools to see how well they worked and how hard they were to work with. Technical challenge is an important consideration for course activities, as any difficulties I face in testing will be magnified by the number of registered students. Even small problems hinder scalability. In some cases there may be a hundred or more students attempting to figure out a new tool, all at the same time. If just ten percent of them get stuck, that can mean tens of hours—if not days—of cumulative delay while the issue is sorted out. And it’s often much worse than that. Sometimes a third-party tool integration is seamless; sometimes it’s a distraction; and sometimes…
