Managing Projects in and out of class - Trello @trello

It takes a lot for me to talk about a NEW app.  Not that Trello, is new (like buying a used car, it is new to me).  It is an app that I have played with this week due to the nature of the summer and the projects that we work on in the EdTech department, I decided to give it a try.

What is the Purpose of this tool?  

Simple, effective, collaborative project management.

My Need:

I try to do everything in google drive.  I like the ecosystem, apps tend to interact with each other very well, and I do not have to train my crew on something new.  I made a google doc for our weekly meetings and project updates.  I wanted to be able to highlight what was done in the past week, what are the goals for the next week, is there any carry over, etc.  I also wanted to be able to pull apart each individual thing that had to be done into steps, if necessary, and assign tasks to others quickly.

I made an outline in a google doc, but with the size of the team things became unruly quickly.  With the limitation of copy and paste, each team member needed their own set of the same sections (celebrations and setbacks, completed last week, goals for this week, support needed to reach these goals) I started thinking that this was something that I needed to look at a little differently.

Enter Trello:

I had heard of this platform for project management, but, like I said, I do not like to add new things to the mix.  I do not want to be the leader to chases shiny things and quickly changes directions.  1000 different apps for 1000 different purposes. I am glad I tried it out.

What can you do?

Make boards - entire project
Make teams - group of people
Make lists - a list of things
Make cards - the actual lthings
Assign cards
Add checklists, notes, and assign team members to cards. AND THERE IS SO MUCH MORE.

However, that means nothing if you have never seen it.

You can Manage Projects on Trello

Lets learn.  I have tried to click every button and take some screenshots of that for you.  It is important to note that team members need to sign up for Trello to be able to collaborate on the board.  Or you can invite them to a board, but they will need to sign up.  Totally FREE.

Here is the home screen in Trello

Notice that here boards are organized by the team who you have given access to.  In my setting, that is my team, in a classroom, this could be a group working on a project and tracking progress together.

Click on a board to open it up.

What does a Board look like?

Here is a board with 2 lists (Summer To Do and Summer Done).  The rest of the information is on the cards.  I tried to click every button just to give an idea of what it looks  like.

The orange line is actually a tag.  I will talk about that later on.

Edit a Card

So how do you do things to the cards.  Like everything else, just click on it (double-click) to open it.

On the right you see the things that you can do to the card.  The center and bottom displays the activity on the card and allows commenting on the card.  Recorded activity is emailed to those who have subscribed to the card.

The  Menu on the right side has some fun features.  When I opened it I clicked on ...More and this is a feature that I love.  When I am in meetings, there are times that I send myself email reminders.  In Trello, every board has an email address.  you can email your board and the subject and text in the email will be a card in the list that you specify.  Thought that was a fun feature and has proven very useful.

Labels

Click on the Menu  and find labels in the list.  Here you can change the labels.

Sure there is a lot more that you can learn and play with.  Click and try things out.  If you want a board to mess up either create it or send me a message and I can add you to my practice board.