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If you're like many clients or students, you're probably wondering whether WBT developers really need to learn HTML. After all, don't most authoring programs tout their ability to turn mere mortals into Web- savvy cybergeeks without knowing a stitch of HTML?
HTML is easy to learn, and knowing how it works makes you a better WBT developer. Having a problem with how your text shows up inside a table? If you know HTML, you can simply add an attribute like "align=middle" to your table tags. If you don't know HTML, you could spend hours poring over the documentation, menus, and submenus. Your choice.
To get you started, let's check out some free online tutorials. You supply the time and interest, and they'll supply some lessons.
This tutorial was created to make it easy for teachers to develop their own Web sites. There are 29 bite-size lessons (30, if you count Lesson 0, which walks the user through some important HTML background information) leading up to the creation of a reasonably sophisticated Web page.
Lessons one to 14 cover the basic elements, like headings, lists, and linking. Lessons 15 to 29 cover more complex topics like tables, frames, forms, and a little bit about JavaScript. You can download the tutorial and do most of it offline.
The lessons are complete and well sequenced. They're chunked into manageable bits and provide plenty of practice opportunities.
Each lesson starts with objectives. The lesson explains what you will learn, walks you through the steps, and then has you do the steps yourself. You then compare your result with an example of what it should look like. Need help figuring out why your result looks different from theirs? Compare the page source code to see what's different.
A FAQ page helps users overcome the most common stumbling blocks. A summary of HTML tags provides a quick reference if you forget something you learned earlier.
Original article written by Patti Shank.
Reprinted by TechRepublic IT Trainer Digest TechMail with permission from the March 2000 issue of Inside Technology Training magazine. Copyright 2000 Bill Communications, Inc., Minneapolis, MN. All rights reserved. Not for resale.
Visit the IT Training magazine site: http://www.ittrain.com/
HTML Goodies author Joe Burns is an assistant professor of
communications at Southeastern Louisiana University. He wrote these
tutorials to use in his classes, and the rest is history. HTML Goodies
has become a popular site. In addition to having some good information,
it's nicely laid out and very easy to use.
The Primer section is a good place to start. Select The Basics for seven introductory HTML lessons. They're designed to be done in short chunks, one per day. Primer 1 explains what you will need to get started: a computer, a browser, and a text editor or word processor. Primer 2 talks about how HTML is laid out. Primers 3 through 7 cover manipulating text, linking pages, and manipulating images.
When you're done with these, you can move into the Getting Started tutorials. Each section covers a specific aspect of Web page development. Burns shows you how something works and then explains how to do it. Included are newspaper columns, RealAudio, and DHTML.
The pages are laid out similarly and are easy to follow. Some of the examples are a bit confusing, though. He instructs you to practice what he's showing, but there are no specific practice tasks, so it's more informational than instructional. Also, he occasionally uses non- standard terms. For instance, he calls HTML tags (like <b> for bold) "flags" instead of "tags."
Original article written by Patti Shank.
Reprinted by TechRepublic IT Trainer Digest TechMail with permission from the March 2000 issue of Inside Technology Training magazine. Copyright 2000 Bill Communications, Inc., Minneapolis, MN. All rights reserved. Not for resale.
Visit the IT Training magazine site: http://www.ittrain.com/
One of the great things about this site is the way it's written. Articles and tutorials contain loads of wacky humor. It feels like a twentysomething person is sitting next to you explaining cyberstuff.
The site is filled with tutorials on Web-related topics like Flash, Dreamweaver, style sheets, JavaScript, and so on. Just getting started and want to know the basics? Click the Authoring folder in the How-To Library section and find HTML Basics.
A natural starting place is the intro to HTML. This explains what HTML is and how it works. After reading the background information, you're ready for the HTML teaching tool. This page provides links to simple tutorials that teach the most common HTML tags. Each tutorial starts with the most common uses for that tag, then shows examples. Click Try It and you'll be able to test your understanding of what was just explained. Put in the HTML, click Go, and see if you can produce the desired result. Didn't work? Click View Source to see what you did wrong.
This is a good site if you're not a total newbie, as the volume of information can be overpowering. Links to additional information within the Webmonkey site are helpful for Web developers, but they may overwhelm a novice. There's no sequencing to speak of, and the site often assumes you already know at least something. Since each page is filled with lots of links, it's hard to know whether to follow them. If you do, it's easy to get sidetracked. In other words, this looks less like a bunch of tutorials and more like a performance support tool.
Original article written by Patti Shank.
Reprinted by TechRepublic IT Trainer Digest TechMail with permission from the March 2000 issue of Inside Technology Training magazine. Copyright 2000 Bill Communications, Inc., Minneapolis, MN. All rights reserved. Not for resale.
Visit the IT Training magazine site: http://www.ittrain.com/
This site, developed by the National Cable Television Association and Tech Corps, is a self-paced tutorial on basic and more complex Internet concepts. Topics include Web browsers, e-mail, mailing lists, and developing your own Web pages.
The site was developed for teachers, but it would be quite useful for anyone needing to understand these concepts. WebTeacher has two sections: a Web primer and a Web tutorial. The Web primer provides condensed introductory lessons for folks who just want some basics. The Web tutorial provides more in-depth information.
A good place for new developers to start is the section on HTML. The first page in this section, called Baby Homepage, shows you, using examples and pictures, what it takes to build a very simple Web page. The authors tell you and show you what they're explaining. The step-by- step lessons allow you to follow along with the concepts while using them in your own pages. Instructions are clear and easy to follow.
The site determines up front which browser and platform you're using, and then gives you the instructions that will be most clear to you.
This site is instructional, not just informational. If your WBT developers need to know more about the Internet than how to put tags into a HTML document (and they all do, even if they don't realize it), bookmark this site.
Original article written by Patti Shank.
Reprinted by TechRepublic IT Trainer Digest TechMail with permission from the March 2000 issue of Inside Technology Training magazine. Copyright 2000 Bill Communications, Inc., Minneapolis, MN. All rights reserved. Not for resale.
Visit the IT Training magazine site: http://www.ittrain.com/