HTML is one of those acronyms that is eagerly used by just about everyone involved in e-learning these days. For the newcomer to Internet technologies it can be quite difficult to find out what it actually means. The term is often loosely quoted in reference to the more technical aspects of displaying content on the Web. While this is true, it's by no means the whole story. This article attempts to do more than just that: to tell the tale simply.

The Old Reveal Codes - Again!
Firstly, let us defuse some of the power and mystique associated with the platform. It's really no big deal. Hypertext Markup Language (or HTML) is not really a computer programming language in the traditional sense. Ultimately it lacks the power and complexity to be called that. At its core HTML is more a of simple syntax set which, once understood, allows us to format text and images so that they display to our personal liking in a Web browser such as Internet Explorer and Netscape. This is what the Markup part of the acronym refers to. The content is 'marked up' so that it suits your tastes. Throw in another simple little trick that allows you to link a piece of text so that it can be clicked on and you've got the hypertext part sussed.

Lets go back a decade. Do you ever remember grappling with primitive versions of early word processors such as Microsoft Word or Wordperfect? They contained an option that allowed you to 'reveal codes'. If you wanted the word 'chipmunk' to print out as bold then you enclosed it with a code.

That is - Chipmunk, with the correct code assigned to it printed out as Chipmunk on paper. (It is impossible to show you the code here because the LearnScope publishing feature uses HTML tags - they automatically assign the attributes to the text, as in the second, bolded "chipmunk" in the sentence above. Go to the "How to..." article on HTML or one of the tutorials listed below in the "Resources" section to learn specific HTML codes).

Anyway, that's all HTML is - a bunch of code specifying how you want text and other page contents formatted. In fact it is so simplistic and primitive that web designers, used to desktop publishing software that allows granular layout control, sometimes resent HTML's limitations. But more of that later.

Of Web Browsers
The need for a markup/formatting language arose in 1993 when a slightly rebellious and rather bright young MIT researcher by the name of Marc Andreeson developed Mosaic, the first iteration of a program that today is known as a Web Browser. He needed a practical system that would render the documents that it was to display. The system that was adapted had been developed three years earlier by Swiss-based computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee. Tim, who originally designed the architecture to facilitate the dissemination of scientific papers over computer networks, had named his invention the World Wide Web ("Ah!", we hear you say...) and wrote the original HTML specification.

The evolution of the web browser and HTML were from then on inextricably linked. Each new browser version released after 1993 attempted to expand on the functionality of previous versions, which meant that the formatting tags needed extending as well. This has continued to this day. The current specification is XHTML 1.0. A consortium entitled W3 administers the process and releases new specifications/standards in consultation with various industry groups.

Want be a Webmonkey, anyone?
Producing content in HTML format is not difficult. There are many tutorials on the Web that can take you through the basics, including some you will find here on the LearnScope site. At a fundamental level all that is needed is a text-editing program such as Windows Notepad. Mind you, this can be rather mind numbing and frustrating. It is probably much easier to learn marking up in conjunction with one of the many WYSWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors available for this purpose. Due to its simplicity and repetitive tagging conventions, HTML was never intended to be coded 'by hand'.

What can be more difficult for budding web authors to grasp are the different implementations of HTML within the various web browsers, as well as the formatting limitations of the language itself. Your lovingly formatted online course may look great in Internet Explorer and completely different in Netscape for example. Similarly, you may be able to produce great-looking written content on a word processor, but struggle to implement your fancy layouts using HTML because there is simply no provision for them in the specification. Only over time will you find out how professional web designers use a variety of tricks to overcome these challenges.

Beyond the Basics
So could that be all there is to it? You really don't believe us, do you? You've seen the graphical animations, the interactive games, the web polls, streaming audio and so on. And since these go beyond document formatting surely that ain�‚t HTML. You're right! HTML can call an unlimited variety of browser helper applications (called plugins once upon a time) that extend the basic functions of a Web browser. To produce content for helper applications requires learning a new architecture and program each time.

An array of web server based scripting languages also exist that allow the creation of sophisticated interactivity with your students or site visitors They have names like PHP, PERL, ASP, CGI, Cold Fusion and go beyond the scope of this article. If you've ever worked with courseware delivered via the learning platform WebCT, you have seen PERL in action. If you've ever shopped at amazon.com you have interfaced with CGI and Web databases.

Further there are so called client-side scripting languages and platforms such as Javascript, VB Script and Java. Inserting such script or applets into your code creates interactivity and enhanced functionality that is executed on the user's computer rather than a server located thousands of miles away. A lot of online currency converters, mortgage calculators and simple games that you've encountered would have been created in these scripting languages.

What is significant however is that all these can be mixed into your HTML mark up code, providing you take the effort to learn them. They provide opportunities to make things a whole lot more interesting. But before you rush off and do that, why not learn HTML, the lingua franca of the Web first. We're sure that you'll have fun...


RESOURCES

Web History www.w3.org/history.html

Tim Berners-Lee www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) www.mit.edu

W3 Consortium www.w3.org



HTML Tutorials:

W3 http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide

Webmonkey http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/frontdoor/beginners.html


Windows WYSWYG Editors:

Allaire Homesite http://www.allaire.com/products/homesite

Macromedia Dreamweaver www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver

Microsoft FrontPage www.microsoft.com/frontpage