Exploring and Building Open [Source] Software for Tech-savvy Educators and OER Publishers

I recently tweeted some reasons for using the Grav Open Educational Resources (OER) Content Space, and I thought I would share them here:

(1/8) So, perhaps you are wondering… why use the @getgrav CMS Open Educational Resources (#OER) Content Space Project? #openaccess #LMS

— Hibbitts Design (@hibbittsdesign) February 6, 2017

Grav OER Content Space Skeleton Package

With the recent addition of the GitSync and Add Page by Form plugins along with the arrival of the Gantry 5 Framework to the Grav universe, 2017 holds even greater promise for (open) educators to benefit from Grav. With these new elements, not only will the setup of the multi-device friendly and collaborative Grav Course Hub be easier and quicker, but a whole new range of applications with Grav opens up in relation to open blogging and online OER authoring/sharing. Let’s start with the Grav Course Hub!

Since I first started exploring using Grav almost two years ago as an open and collaborative platform for the field of education, I have dreamed of a seamless 2-way sync of Grav site content to such services as GitHub or GitLab. Now, with the great work of the Trilby Media team (the people who created Grav) not only will this possible for myself but also the entire Grav community. By sponsoring the development of the open source Git Sync Plugin I was able to not only support the team behind Grav but also increase the audience for my own Course Hub skeleton package and consultation services about the use of Grav in the education space.

This post was inspired by the very informative July 14th BCcampus Canvas LMS session with Stan Wendt and moderated by Clint Lalonde.

If my reading of the tea leaves is correct, there could be a big uptake of the use of the Canvas LMS in Canada with news of a possible hosted in Canada cloud offering. As a sessional faculty member of the Computing Science Department at Simon Fraser University I’ve been using Canvas for the past several years and I thought it might be helpful for other potential users of Canvas to share my experiences so far.

The Flipped LMS: A Workflow - Watch the Edge

Fork U - The GitHub Workshop

With Grav being a flat-file (no database) CMS tech-savvy educators have a wider range of possible development and deployment options for their Grav Course Hubs than most other database-driven systems. Recently I’ve been exploring an on-line alternative to my currently preferred local development approach, so I thought I would share both together for easier comparison. Both approaches will let you safely develop and test your Grav site before deploying changes to a live production server.

Recently I’ve been exploring online (aka “cloud”) IDE’s for use with my various Grav sites and to also recommend for other educators who use Grav with GitHub (as I do). Yesterday I happily discovered SourceLair, which provides a straightforward online environment to develop and test a variety of Web project types all within your Browser (or in my case on my Chromebook). Other noteworthy highlights about SourceLair include a full-screen Terminal and a public URL which can share with others to view your in-development work.

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.