It’s been a pretty busy year for my Grav-based open education projects - here are the highlights:
The Grav CMS Open Course Hub project is now significantly more accessible than ever! Not only has the overall accessibility been improved, but the Grava11y Plugin (courtesy of absalomedia) is now pre-installed to help others make their own sites more accessible tooπ
Figure 1 - Grava11y Plugin Popup (lower-left)
Today, the biggest update so far to the Git Sync Plugin has been released, and what a release it is! Two of the most requested features have been added - the ability to sync additional user folders and the ability to fine-tune the automatic synchronization of page changes - plus much more!
SFU’s fourth annual DEMOfest is scheduled for Wed, November 21st and I hope to share with my fellow educators how the Grav CMS can be used to expand and enhance Canvas - here’s my submitted proposal:
Expanding and Enhancing Canvas with the Open Source Grav CMS
Tech-savvy educators! Want to incorporate more open and collaborative materials within Canvas? How about improving the online experience? Faced with this challenge, Paul Hibbitts developed components for the file-based Grav CMS (getgrav.org) to effectively work inside of his CMPT-363 Canvas course (https://canvas.sfu.ca/courses/38847). Grav uses the platform-independent Markdown format and enables collaborative editing by students and instructors with Git-based services such as GitHub and GitLab. These also naturally support the 5 Rs (Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix and Redistribute) of Open Educational Resources. Integrating Grav pages within Canvas is seamless too - without any content restrictions.
Open Publishing Space with Git Sync is designed to publish, share and collaboratively edit Markdown-based content using the modern flat-file Grav CMS. I am happy to share the news that a customized version of the new Grav default theme Quark, using the Lightweight, Responsive and Modern CSS Framework Spectre CSS Framework, is now the standard Open Publishing Space theme!
Figure 1. Open Publishing Space Blog List
The original Open Publishing Space theme, a customized version of the Antimatter theme, is still available.
Continue ReadingWith an unexpected opportunity to teach SFU CMPT 363 User Interface Design this summer, Iβve been feverishly working in the open on the accompanying Canvas LMS site (leveraging my Grav Open Course Hub project) so that potential students can better self-assess course fit before our first class me...
A brief video demonstrating how locally hosted H5P content can be used with the Grav Open Course Hub (once you have set the source URL of the H5P content):
With the most recent release of the Grav Open Course Hub, site authors can insert H5P content (hosted on h5p.org) into any page using a simple Shortcode (i.e. ). In addition, a new H5P button is now available in the Admin Panel page editor to make using the H5P Shortcode even easier!
Figure 1...