Behind the Scenes: The Making of an Online Class

by | Jan 23, 2015

Alicia_studio_3We’re busy working on our next online class, QuickBooks Online Fundamentals. Over the next few weeks, we thought we’d give you a behind the scenes look at what it takes to make an online class. Where do we start? With planning and organizing, of course.

Planning and Organizing an Online Class with Trello

Alicia’s latest class is an in-depth course on using QuickBooks Online to manage your business finances. To organize an endeavor of this magnitude, she’s using Trello.

Trello is a free, web-based project management application. What sets this app apart from others is its versatility –  you can use it to organize the day to day tasks of your life, your business, AND creative projects like designing a website or writing your next novel.

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We set up a Board called QBO Video, Lists (Intro, Setting Up QBO, etc.) for each section of the class, and Cards (Why QBO, Which Version Should You Use?, etc.) for each video, or lesson, to record.

On some of the cards, in the left hand corner, you can see a tiny speech bubble or a list icon. These tell us if a card has comment Activity or a Checklist. Clicking on the Starting from Scratch Card opens a window showing the details for that video.

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In this window, you can add a description. For our project, we could use this field for an outline of the video. Or, we could include a full script by adding an Attachment to the Card.

We added a checklist for the different topics covered in this lesson. As Alicia works through the items in the list she’ll check them off.

One great feature of Trello is the ability to add Members to the project for easy collaboration. You can see that this card has two members, Alicia, and Jen. Members can add comments to the Activity section on the card so everyone is up to date on the project. This is where Alicia alerts Jen, the editor, to any issues with the video and when it’s ready to be edited.

As you can see, Trello helped us plan our QuickBooks Online video class and stay organized. In our next Behind the Scenes installment, I’ll talk about Camtasia 2 for Mac, the application we use to record and edit our online classes.

About Alicia Katz Pollock

With a Masters in Teaching from Tufts University, a QuickBooks®️ Online Advanced Certification and more than 30 years’ experience in the tech industry, Alicia is passionate about finding creative, practical solutions to complex and everyday tech problems. She also loves a good laugh!

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