Susan Sey, Education Scotland Product Manager ran a Glow Blogs Webinar last week.
This session provided an overview of how Glow Blogs could be used by practitioners and students to capture and exemplify learning.
Glow Blogs Webinar – Glow Connect
There was a live demo showcasing how you can build pages using the new block editor.
We also looked at how you can embed interactivity by using the H5P plugin.
You can download the presentation, follow links and watch a replay on Glow Connect.
This tutorial shows how to make a one page site with Glow Blogs. You can read through the tutorial or follow along on the Video.
The tutorial will cover using the block editor, patterns & the document overview.
This will be a Links in Bio type of page or site that is common on the internet now, sometimes called Link Trees sites. There are several services that will help you create such a site but it is pretty easy with Glow Blogs.
You could add a page like this to an existing site or create a a one page site just for sharing a set of links.
The tutorial will also help you to understand some of the basics of the Block editor.
The site will be a simple list of links. I might use it to provide a set of resources, or list different places on the internet I’ve got a presence.
You can view the completed one page example site.
This is the first of several tutorials sites that are in the works. We would very much appreciate any feedback.
The latest release of Glow Blogs makes a slight change to how you create a new site.
There is an added choice when creating a site:
You can choose between the Classic and Block editor.
Choosing Classic will create a site with the default editor for posts and pages is the classic editor and the theme is Twenty Fourteen. This is the default choice.
Choosing Blocks with make the default editor the newer blocks editor. The Theme will be Twenty Twenty-three.
In both cases you can change the editor later in the settings-> Writing page of your blog’s dashboard. You can also set it to allow yourself and other users of the site to swap back and forth between editors.
You can also change the theme in the Dashboard-> Appearance page.
The Twenty-Twenty-three theme is a block theme and is very customisable using the Site editor to edit the templates. This is a bit more complex that using the customiser on older themes.
You can use either editors to edit pages and posts on your site they are not theme dependent. The exceptions are the Make and Agama themes which do not work with the block editor.
The block editor is the future of WordPress, it allows for a modular design for flexible content creation. You can make more complex layouts than with the old classic editor. Many features, columns, groups which have been much requested by glow users are in the Block editor.
We have a page on the help blog: The Block Editor which outlines some of the differences.
We have also a blog which give a lot more details on using the blocks editor Blocks – Using the Blocks Editor in Glow Blogs. This lists all the available blocks, shows examples and has links to even more information.
The First Annual H5P Academy Awards were just announced. The winners in the different categories:
Although they are all from higher education they give a good idea of how H5P can be used at a sophisticated level. The winners are linked from the announcement.
There has been a new version of Game Map and Drag the Words. You can read more on the March 2024 release note at h5p.org.
These updates are available in Glow Blogs now. You may need to update the modules concerned when you are creating H5P content:
Click on the Details Button and then Update.
There have been several changes to the way Twitter (now X) works with Glow Blogs.
Twitter/X keeps changing the goal posts for integration with other systems. Recently they have stripped out most of the functionality for free third party use.
This is, as far as we know, the current state of affairs. Please get in touch if you have a different experience or more information.
You cannot use the Twitter Timeline widget anymore. We will soon be removing it from Glow Blogs. At the moment it just does not work. You might see old tweets or just a no tweets yet notice in the widget.
You can still embed tweets in a blog post or page by pasting in the link to that tweet. N.B. I just tested this and if you copy the link to the tweet from the twitter user interface you get a url like:
you need to change x to twitter for that now to work.
In the past a tweet with replies the replies would get embedded, it now embeds the tweet and then a link to all the replies. If you embed a reply toy will get the original tweet & the one reply linked to.
If you paste a link to a blog post into twitter, it will produce a card consisting of the featured image which links to the blog post. As in the example above.
If the blog post does not have a featured image no image will be included.
You can still use some services to auto post tweets, https://dlvrit.com is still working for me. I presume they pay twitter for the privilege. An image will be posted along with a dlvr.it shortened link.
Plugin updates include updated and small fixes for:
In addition we should mention a new content type for H5P content was added last week. The Game Map:
Glow Blogs has undergone an update, including fixes for various issues and notable improvements.
We have just added a lot more blocks to use in the Block Editor.
Unfortunately the Forms are not working properly. The Developers are working on a fix.
In the meantime the Jetpack Contact form still word as expected in the classic editor. If you switch to the classic editor for a post or page you can create a form there. Contact forms can be used for gathering information of all sorts, not just contacts. More information on the Jetpack Contact form in Glow Blogs.
There is currently a problem with the system for adding users from a curriculum group from seemis.
November 2024 Bulk Create Blogs is now working as expected.
27 Sep 2023 Add Users, Add Curriculum Groups is now fixed and working as expected. A fix is under way for Bulk Create Blogs and we expect it to be live in October.
This stops the Bulk Creation of blogs working.
Users can still be added to blogs using the Add Users Screen, not the Add Curricular Groups. Details: Add Users.
A fix has been developed and is in the process of being tested before deployment. We hope the fix for the Add Users screen will be out before the end of the month and the Bulk Create Blogs in October.
Fixed 26 September 2023
We have currently a problem with the list block in the Block Editor on Glow Blogs. When you create a list, it only allows you to have one item. Pressing return does not give you another item in the list.
A fix has been found and will be release soon.
Workarounds
Use a classic block. This adds the older classic editor to a post where you can add a list.
Use a markdown block.
Markdown bullet list:
Markdown numbered list:
The about list was produced with the markdown block, here is a screenshot:
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