Grav CMS for Educators

Flipping the LMS with an
Open + Collaborative Web Platform

EDUCATOR AND EXPERIENCE DESIGN CONSULTANT

Paul D Hibbitts

@hibbittsdesign

hibbittsdesign.org

Workshop resources: bit.ly/1PDs3N8

Hello, Grav
(Workshop I) 

• What is a Modern Flat-file CMS?
• Getting Grav Up and Running
• The Basics of Grav

What makes a CMS “Modern”?

• Modern PHP code (i.e. reliability, speed, extensibility, etc.)

• Use of current standards (i.e. Markdown, Twig, YAML, etc.)

• Modular/customizable content chunks (i.e. reuse of content)

• Further separation of content (i.e. files) from presentation

What makes a CMS “Flat-file”?

• No database means less (or no) IT involvement needed

• Content stored in text files rather than in a database

• Takes full advantage of the collaborative ecosystem now available (i.e. GitHub)

• Increased portability, as moving a site now only requires simply copying files to another location

• All template and content files are 100% version controllable

Requirements

• A Webserver (Apache, Nginx, LiteSpeed, etc.)
• PHP 5.5.9 or higher (7.0 recommended, 2X faster!)

Installation (Server only)

1. Download Grav Workshop Demo Site (bit.ly/1ZZjstZ​)
2. Unzip the package onto your desktop
3. Copy the entire Grav folder to your Web server
4. Point your browser at the Web server folder
5. Create your site administrator account
6. And you're done!

Installation (Local Desktop)

1. Download and install MAMP (mamp.info)
2. Download/unzip Grav Workshop Demo Site (bit.ly/1ZZjstZ​)
3. Unzip the downloaded Grav package onto your desktop
4. Copy the entire Grav folder into the MAMP 'htdocs' folder
5. Launch MAMP and press the MAMP 'Start Servers' button
6. Enter 'localhost:8888' in Web Browser and choose Grav folder
7. Create your site administrator account
8. And you're done!

Admin Panel Overview

The 'Admin Panel' provides the ability to easily manage your site, modify content, and perform updates

Your Content and Grav

All of your site content is stored in the 'user/pages' folder

Pages

Each page within Grav is stored as a folder, and within each folder the text and other elements of a page are stored

Page Folders

The numeric prefixes of a page folder name (i.e. '01') are used to determine the position of that page within a site navigation bar

Page Folders

To prevent a page from being included within the site navigation bar do not prefix the folder name with a number (i.e. 'sidebar)

Page Editing

Within a page folder a text file with the suffix '.md' (markdown) contains the content for that page

Recommended Text Editors

• Adobe Brackets (shown in these slides)
• Atom (my preferred text/markdown editor)

Page Names

The name of the file within a page folder determines the template used to display it (i.e. page 'item.md' would use the template 'item')

Page Headers

Each page within Grav contains two main parts; a header
(starting and ending with three dashes ('---'),
with the content of the page below

Markdown

Markdown is a syntax to format the display of content stored as plain text - similar but simpler than HTML formating

Markdown Examples

Tip: To ensure a new paragraph after text in markdown,
put two spaces after the end of the line

Linking Pages

To included a link to one of your site's Grav pages you would generally use the following format: '[your link text](../path/page)'

Note: '../' indicates moving up the file directory

Embedding Media

To embed an image you would use the following format:
''

Note: the above assumes media is stored within folder of page

Things to Explore Next...

• Learn about more Page Header options
• Review a Markdown tutorial
• Try out some open source Grav themes and plugins
• Use the built-in media manipulation functionality

Thank you! Questions?

• Contact Info  
  • Blog:  hibbittsdesign.org
  • Email:  paul@paulhibbitts.com
  • Twitter:  @hibbittsdesign
  • LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/in/paulhibbitts
• Grav Resources
  • Website:  getgrav.org
  • Twitter:  @getgrav
  • Documentation:  learn.getgrav.org (built with Grav itself)

Flip Your LMS with Grav (Workshop II)

• Flipping your LMS
• An Open and Collaborative Workflow
• Course Companion Skeleton Package

What is a Flipped LMS?

Why “Flip” the LMS?

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

Experience Design Goals

• For Students

  • Engaging

  • Organized

  • Relevant

  • Convenient

  • Enjoyable

• For Facilitator(s)

  • Controllable (i.e. manageable)

  • Pliable (i.e. flexible)

  • Efficient

  • Enjoyable (hey, instructors are people too...)

Why Grav?

• The best modern flat-file CMS currently available (to me)
• Due to it's flat-file nature, Grav also fully supports...

Recommended Toolset

• MAMP
• Git service (e.g. GitHub, GitLab Gogs, etc.)
• GitHub Desktop
• Automatic deployment service (e.g. Deploy or Buddy)

What Skills are Required?

• Basic User Skills, Level I (Web-server Only)

  • Text file editing

  • Copying/pasting/editing URLs

  • Markdown or simple HTML formatting

  • Web server access (i.e. FTP)

• Basic User Skills, Level II (supports an open and collaborative workflow, which is also very efficient!)

  • Setting up a GitHub account

  • Configuring GitHub Desktop app

  • Setting up a GitHub to FTP server service (e.g. Deploy)

So, what does that workflow
look like?

How long would that
update take?

Setting up An Open and Collaborative Workflow - Part I

1. Download/unzip Grav Course Hub Skeleton (bit.ly/1QQsJ7z)
2. Create a folder 'MAMP Websites' in your 'Documents' folder
3. Copy the entire Grav folder into the 'MAMP Websites' folder
4. Download, install, and launch MAMP
5. Launch MAMP
6. Change the 'Document Root' MAMP preferences setting to the 'MAMP Websites' folder (within 'Documents')
7. Press the MAMP 'Start Servers' button
8. Enter 'localhost:8888' as the URL in your Web Browser
9. Choose the displayed Grav folder name
10. Create your site administrator account
     

Want more details? Running Grav Locally with MAMP 

Setting up An Open and Collaborative Workflow - Part II

1. Setup a GitHub account
2. Download and configure GitHub Desktop
3. Using GitHub Desktop, create a new repository of your locally running Grav installation
4. Commit your entire site to your repository
5. Setup an automatic deployment service (can be done later)

Want more details? Using Grav with GitHub Desktop

Course Hub Highlights

• A complete ready-to-run Grav Skeleton Package (open source)
• Blog-format, with 'featured' (sticky) posts
• Important reminders & class preparations areas
• Additional site pages can be easily added
• Image header area above site navbar
• Sidebar is a simple markdown file, which can also contain HTML
• URL flag to only display page content (for display within LMS  )
• External links are automatically opened in a new Tab/Window
• Built-in support for entire site to be maintained on GitHub
• Since everything is built with Grav it can be entirely customized

Things to Explore Next...

• Font awesome icons (included)
• Modular content using Page Inject plugin (included)
• Gravstrap Shortcodes plugin
  (included with Course Hub Bootstrap
• Additional theme customizations

Thank you! Questions?

• Contact Info  
  • Blog: hibbittsdesign.org
  • Email: paul@paulhibbitts.com
  • Twitter: @hibbittsdesign
  • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/paulhibbitts
• Grav Resources
  • Website: getgrav.org
  • Twitter: @getgrav
  • Documentation: learn.getgrav.org (built with Grav itself)
• Course Hub 
  • Grav Course Hub Getting Started Guide:
    http://hibbittsdesign.org/blog/getting-started
  • EDUCAUSE Next Gen LMS paper (“NGDLE”):
    http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli3035.pdf