One of the major drawbacks to using Rise 360 is its cost. The software is subscription based and is quite expensive, even for an individual learner such as me. The cheapest subscription is over $500 USD, and most are even more. This huge hurdle made me consider the resources that individuals have and need for academic work and for employment (1.1, 1.3, 1.5). To get experience using Rise 360, without paying for the expensive subscription you would need to already have employment with a company that uses the software or attend a school that has an academic subscription for their students. Many schools are experiencing a tightening of budgets and funding, and certainly one specific program such as Rise 360 is too expensive for the purposes of teaching one or two instructional design courses. At least this is the case for Athabasca University! When I consider the ever-widening array of technology and subscription-based services that are available it concerns me that it has become near impossible for learners and potential employees like myself to keep up with the trends in educational technology (1.9).

To my benefit, there is a free one-month trial membership that I was able to make use of. This gave me a short window of time to complete the assignment and save it offline for future use. In a sense I was problem solving from the start (1.1, 1.4). To overcome the problem of paying for an expensive software to gain first-hand experience with it, I found a workable solution in the free trial. Once I gained access to the Rise 360 software, I started out by watching some instructional videos. Rise 360 has a huge library of information on how to get the most out of the product. I found this part of the process to be somewhat slow-moving as I consider myself to be technically adept and watching the very basic videos that were hours long was too tedious for me. This made me consider the importance of scaffolding, because students come into every course with such a variety of skills and experience. If I was teaching this program to my own students, I would need to allow students time to get to know the software, even though some of them might breeze through it like myself, others would need much more instructional time based on their prior use of web design software. Once I had watched a few of the introductory lessons, I decided the best way to learn was to get my feet wet and just jump into using the software (5.4). I find learning new programs and technology a fun and worthwhile activity and so this part of the assignment was interesting and exciting for me!

I discovered immediately that the program was relatively easy to use. I had used software such as Wordpress and Canvas before, and Rise 360 has a similar drag and drop layout to these other technologies. This was a relief because I had anticipated that with such a high price tag that there would be some difficult features to wrap my head around. I created a mini course showing my learning journey of the experience of creating the course itself (2.5). I tried to include a variety of appropriate media types and follow instructional design principles in the course, without it becoming overwhelming for the viewer (2.8, 3.2). Some of the tools I opted to include in my course were interactive checklists that students can use to monitor their progress through a list of required activities, flashcards for review activities, and a sorting activity that shows the benefits of interactive components of lessons. I made each type of activity explanatory as to why it was helpful for students, for example the sorting activity gives examples of types of lesson elements that the reader must sort into either interactive or static (1.11, 2.4). One of the defining features of Rise 360 is that it automatically animates features of the pages as the user scrolls through, making it visually appealing without much effort on the designing side of things. I enjoyed using the program, and its aesthetically pleasing elements were simple and automatic. I understood immediately why it’s a popular choice for businesses selling online courses!

While I saw the benefits and simplicity of the program immediately, I also came to recognize that this is very much a trendy way to provide distance and online education. Specific programs come and go, and as each new program is developed, education providers should make sure their courses are not only flashy and beautiful but will stand the test of time. It would be quite costly to update all the courses to a new program in a few years when something flashier is available (6.1). I realized that while new technology can always do amazing things, it’s also important to look past the hype, consider future costs involved in technology use, and recognize that each technology has its place based on limited resources and funding (3.2. 3.4)

I am also aware that the sort of course that Rise 360 creates is also not always accessible for all users. While flashy graphics and clean animations are visually appealing and engaging, they are not always the best way to offer educational information (3.3). While Rise 360 would make beautiful training videos for corporate use, the lack of ability to completely control the coding of each aspect and potentially make a low bandwidth version of each course would make it less desirable for public educational use. Certainly, the cost associated with the software puts a huge barrier to widespread use in public education.

While I went into this assignment feeling somewhat apprehensive of learning a new technology, especially having a strict timeframe due to the one-month subscription, I found it very enjoyable, engaging, and worthwhile (6.6). Having a document to showcase afterwards that is relevant and shows my skills was rewarding, and this was undoubtedly one of my favourite assignments in the entire MDDE program. Not only would I feel comfortable using and recommending the program in the right context (6.4), but I also experienced first-hand the benefits of offering choice and individualization to students in their assignments (2.3). Being able to choose to learn about something that I felt was beneficial increased my own engagement and motivation to do the work.