Here is the list of resources for participants in my Grav CMS for Educators workshops (bit.ly URL is http://bit.ly/1PDs3N8):

Grav Skeletons

• Grav Workshop Demo Site (bit.ly/1ZZjstZ)
• Course Hub Skeleton with Admin Panel (bit.ly/1QQsJ7z)

I came across this tweet today, thanks to the @getgrav Twitter feed:

Working on a CMS comparison of @Statamic, @GetKirby, @CraftCMS, & @GetGrav. Any insights you’d like to share? pic.twitter.com/RZYL4sf0yT

— Patrick Haney (@notasausage) February 3, 2016

This is something I can definitely speak to, as in fact just over a year ago I tried out each of the above CMSs (and a few others) for use as a new course website platform. Here is a little trip down memory lane…

I am putting together a very brief presentation about flipping an LMS with an open + collaborative platform. Here is what I’ve got so far:

Flip it Good! Flipping the LMS with an Open + Collaborative Platform
Do you have unmet pedagogical goals due to the constraints of your current LMS? Do you want to have a better experience for your students and yourself? In preparing his Fall 2015 CMPT-363 (User Interface Design) course at Simon Fraser University, instructor and interaction designer Paul Hibbitts faced these same challenges. His solution was to ‘flip the LMS’ by designing and developing an alternative front-end to the institutional LMS Canvas (http://paulhibbitts.net/cmpt-363-153/). In this approach, the LMS was used only for elements it was best suited for (i.e. student records, grades, etc.) with all other elements handled by an open extensible platform completely under his control.

This article is now outdated. Please refer to the Grav Course Companion Getting Started Guide.

I am pleased (well, actually quite stoked) to announce that my ready-to-run Course Companion, built with the open source CMS Grav, is now available for fellow educators to take for a test drive.

Here is a quick sampling of some Grav CMS Course Companion workflows:

Video 1. Simple install of the course companion on a Web server (in under 30 seconds).

Figure 1. Flipped-LMS approach using Grav CMS, GitHub, and Deploy.

This article is now outdated. Please refer to the Grav Course Companion Getting Started Guide.

To kick off 2016 in style, I’ve just released an early prototype + documentation for my Grav CMS Course Companion skeleton package, based on the Bones Vanilla theme.

Figure 1. Bones Vanilla Cours...

What is a flipped LMS?
A flipped LMS approach is where an open platform, in the control of course participants, serves as an alternative front-end to the institutional LMS

Figure 1. Flipped-LMS approach.

Why flip the LMS?
To support pedagogical goals unmet by current LMS/platform
To deliver a better student (and facilitator) experience
To increase capability of access, sharing and collaboration

As a modern flat-file CMS, Grav can take full advantage of today’s ecosystem of open and collaborative editing services, such as GitHub or GitLab. In this article we will look at how to easily use Grav with GitHub Desktop (which uses GitHub and Git for source control) and the automatic deployment service Deploy to result in a very efficient, open and collaborative workflow. No scripting or command line interactions will be required, I promise.

Recently, I’ve been exploring ways to use the modern flat-file CMS Grav as a simple open publishing tool. Grav is a natural candidate for this usage, as all content is stored as individual files which can be stored on a variety of open and collaborative editing environments (e.g. GitHub).