Crash Course - Introduction

Introduction to HTML

HTML or HyperText Markup Language, is the standard set of codes used on the Internet to design and view World Wide Web pages.

HTML in the Classroom???

HTML documents are basically text documents (also known as ASCII documents) which can be typed up on a word processor, or using an HTML editor such as BBEdit or Pagemill. What makes HTML documents functional, however, are the codes that are inserted throughout the text, which in turn tell a computer's web browsing software how the document should appear and behave on the screen.

To Code or Not to Code?

Should you take the time to teach students raw HTML, or should they use one of the many WYSIWYG editors on the market? In my mind, there is no question. Teach them the basics of HTML tags first. Then they are free to choose whatever method they like.

Some people argue that few students will go on to careers in HTML, so why bother with raw code? All the more reason to stick with raw code. Most students can make very nice pages knowing less than a dozen HTML tags. It takes me much less time to teach the basic tags than it does to teach the mechanics of the "easy-to-use" editors.

Students who want to go beyond what I teach can easily learn from other pages by viewing source code, or by referencing one of the dozens of web sites devoted to teaching HTML. There is only one source of information available with commercial editors and a confusing host of features that will just go unused.

To begin the tutorial we must use two pieces of software:

  1. Microsoft Notepad or any text editor
  2. Web Browser (Netscape/Internet Explorer)
 TUTORIAL-->