Project-Management Tools To Help International Students

“Great project management tools will help students save time, break language barriers, and communicate in real time”

There’s no question that managing multiple school projects simultaneously, whether personal or with a group, can be challenging. International students may find this more difficult as they face language barriers and time differences if they travel home at any point during an academic term.

Luckily, there are several tools online that can assist students in making productivity a reality. Trello, Slack, and Asana are all 100% online and give students the ability to track progress wherever they go.

Here is a summary of three tools so you can advise students on which might work best for them and their classmates.

What They All Have in Common

Even though these three platforms have different looks and interpretations of the same concepts, there are several similarities that make all them a good choice. It’s up to the student to determine which option best suits their needs.

  • Mobile. All three platforms have free mobile apps that can be downloaded on a smartphone and other mobile devices. This will help coordinate projects with team members in different time zones.
  • Document Storage. Users can upload documents to each platform, which makes sharing between devices easier. This comes in handy when utilising the platform for group projects. However, users are not able to edit any documents inside the platforms, so they need to re-upload each time an update is made.
  • Communication. Regardless of which platform a student chooses, all are ideal for team projects. Each has its own way of making team communication efficient and productive, including instant chat features for private and group messaging. This makes communication between seamless.
  • Languages. Multiple languages are supported on these platforms. Trello is the most language friendly and supports over 20 languages. If the desired language isn’t available for translation yet, students can still utilise the platform and ignore any spellcheck notifications.
  • Real-time. Everything that happens in all three tools occurs instantly. That means any time gaps are eliminated because all information can be view as soon as it’s submitted.
  • Search. As organised as a student might be, they can save time looking for specific notes, comments, and documents by utilising search features. Users can describe and look up items sent by different team members at different times, which allows any documents relevant to project checkpoints to be selected.

As a Group Project Management Tool

Trello

Trello utilises a list-based user experience. Students can create columns that are made up of cards that provide even more details when they open them. They can add checklists, due dates, comments, and more to each card to customize each to their group’s desired level of detail. When comments are made, the @ sign will send a specific notification to that individual.

Slack

“For group projects that require lots of communication, Slack could be a student’s best friend”

In Slack, users can create difference channels to discuss various parts of projects. Channels are like chat rooms, so a focused ongoing discussion is possible. Members from anywhere can jump to another channel to address another portion of a project without creating a large muddy feed of information.

Asana

Asana is not the only platform with a calendar view, but the view is user-friendly when it comes to deciding what to work on each day and tracking due dates. This will reduce confusion among students who have differing deadline and workflow expectations.  Students can also save templates for projects. For example, for chemistry labs, students can simply copy the template for each lab report instead of starting from scratch each time.

Trello, Slack, and Asana are great project management tools that will help students save time, break language barriers, and communicate in real time. Students looking to coordinate critical and minor tasks on projects should become familiar with these platforms, all of which provide visual breakdowns of projects and will help simplify challenges yet to come.

Jason is the founder of Transizion, a college admissions and mentorship company that provides boot camps and tutoring on college application, college essays, AP exams, academic subjects, and SAT prep.