Tool: Know Your Sources 3.0

Yes, 3.0! This activity is now on its third iteration, and it just keeps getting better and better. You can read about version 2.0 here.
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This year, I had to back away from padlet due to user interface changes they made on their end. I thought I would be able to do the activity in person on our classroom whiteboard. However, as it has in so many things, COVID interfered. I was exposed in a class I'd taught the week prior and hadn't gotten my test results back before I was due to teach a different course. The test did ultimately come back negative, but in the moment I had to quickly pivot my plans from in-person to online. To do that, I ended up pivoting to a tried and true old friend: Google Forms.

Know Your Sources 3.0

This activity was originally born in Google Forms, but version 1.0 was awkward and required significant revision. It was long, clunky, and the user experience of scrolling around the page was frankly bad. It was long, clunky, and the user experience of scrolling around the page was frankly bad. Padlet allowed students to rate the sources on a 1-5 scale, which added some valuable functionality. Still, since we couldn't sort by star rating, it didn't solve the user experience issue fully. For version 3.0, I scaled down the number of sources immensely and broke them out by source type, taking a page from another one of my activities in which students rate the advantages and disadvantages of books, articles, news, and webpages. By scaling down the number of sources, I got the sense that students got to get a better look at each example and make a more informed choice. We also talked more broadly about the advantages and disadvantages of source types, which was a productive conversation. Overall, I think version 3.0 combines the benefits of previous iterations while shedding the weaknesses I'd previously wanted to get around.

What Worked: The number of sources was manageable, and sharing the pie chart of the results allowed a different kind of conversation than previous versions of this activity that I think was more useful for the students.
What Didn't: Honestly, I don't think there was anything that actively didn't work. I'd use this version of the Google Form for an in-person class too.
What I'd Change: I might start using this in other classes beyond this TCID class, so I'll be changing the example topic, but I think this might be the final form of the activity. Of course, I'm always open to changing and editing my activities as I learn new things and become a better teacher, but right now this is where I want it to be.