Trello

Trello is a free cloud-based project management software that allows you to organize projects into boards, lists, and cards. The most basic way to use it is to create a board with three lists ("To-Do," "Doing," and "Done"), create cards with tasks, and then move the cards from To-Do to Doing to Done as tasks are completed. This page has info on Trello for education, in particular.

Our resident expert, Mr. Czaja, has been using Trello. The screenshots above are from his 7th grade Film Class, for a screenwriting project. In his own words:

I've been working on a general "OWNCS Film Class Projects" board with cards for every major project across the six grade levels I teach. There's checklists in each card so, when a card is in the "Doing" list, I can cross off tasks within each project as they are being work on. When all the tasks are crossed off on a particular project card I'll move that card into the "Done" list.

The Trello website has some great examples of Trello boards that other educators have made for various purposes. This one, for example, is great to give to students to help them move through all of the steps in a project. The teacher creates a master version of the board and then they create copies of the board for each student group.

This research project board is really cool because the teacher made individual cards for each student in the class, and then they can move these student cards from list to list as they progress in the project. Since the board is shared with the entire class, when students update their cards, other students can see the work their classmates are doing.

Another great pre-made board to copy : Weekly Class Newsletter