Trello inspiration - how OU professor uses Trello and Dropbox

[#1]

Ever wonder how the Trello integration with Dropbox might be used in higher education? If so, this is the Community post for you! 

Atlassian's Customer Marketing team recently connected with an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of OK, Dr. Jenel Cavazos, to learn how she uses Trello and Dropbox to:

1. manage curriculum development, instructor training, and course management for about 1,500 students per academic year, and
2. make the transition from a pre-COVID-19 classroom to a fully remote working and teaching reality

You can read the full customer story here, but I wanted to summarize some of the cool ways she is leveraging our technology and partnership with Dropbox to manage her course and keep logistical headaches at bay. Hopefully, this will provide some inspiration as you think about your own Trello experiences.

SETTING UP THE TRELLO BOARD WITH LISTS

In order to stay hyper-organized and prepared, the professor has a Trello board set up for each course she teaches and collaborates on with her graduate students. The Trello board is a combination of an information repository and a project tracker. It's divided into the following lists:

• Chapter Improvements and Assignment Ideas
• Revisions, Projects, and Updates
• Class Setup
• Working On It
• All Finished! 🎉

HOW SHE USES CARDS 

• Trello cards are used for collaboration with graduation students by assigning tasks, capturing ideas, checking in on course progress, and providing feedback 
• Advanced Checklist feature on cards to create detailed to-do lists of everything she and her team needs to accomplish at the beginning of every semester.

• Labels are also used on cards to designate the primary owner of the project and the type of class they are planning—either online or face-to-face.

• Card Covers to give context to projects and tasks at a high-level view.

• Dropbox Power Up enables her see Dropbox folders and files, ranging from assignments and course evaluations to syllabi and research documentation, without leaving Trello.
• Dropbox integration allows her to easily attach corse and research info files to cards directly from her Dropbox instance

Hope you are inspired by this application of Trello and Dropbox and, again, visit the official customer story here. You'll learn more about Dr. Cavazos' philosophy and results of using this integrated platform!

INTEGRATIONS REQUIRED

• Dropbox Power Up for Trello
• Trello integration for Dropbox

[milynnus]

@Tricia Olson Thank you for sharing. Passing this on to by biz partner.

(1) Did Dr. Cavazos used Trello to facilitate the actual course delivery for students? if so is there a board design that can be shared?

(2) Do you know why Dropbox was used? Is there specific advantages from a academic or tool perspective over say Google Drive?

TIA.

[Tricia Olson]

@milynnus - thanks for your comment. Regarding your questions...

1. Dr. Cavazos uses these boards to collaborate and communicate with her graduate students and teaching assistants in order to build course curriculums. OU uses a learning management system called TopHat to facilitate the virtual delivery of course content to their undergrad students.
2. Faculty and staff at universities like OU have explained that they enjoy the intuitive file management and structure of Dropbox. Dropbox also has advanced security features so it gives users control over who has access to view and access documents. Dr. Cavazos has been using both tools for years and explained in our conversations with her how she likes how easily the two integrate through the Dropbox Power-Up.

[milynnus]

@Tricia Olson Thanks. Currently with Google as the course material repository, the links does not launch on Trello IOS app when you have Google Drive app installed on the same device. So using Dropbox is definitely an option.