What is HTML?

HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language) is a formatting language using plain text files with formatting codes (tags) that tell browsers like Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator how to display text, position graphics, and display links to other pages.

Why use HTML in a Professional Learning Community site?

The Site Administration tools used in this system have been created for use as a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) system, meaning that you do not have to know any form of code or web practice to insert data onto these pages - the information will appear as it looks when you type it in the Edit Text box.  However, there are a number of schools and offices that use Apple Mac computers.  These computers do not show word processor-like formatting controls in the Edit Text box as this is a Windows tool and users are heavily reliant on copying and pasting from word processing packages or similar. 

Any users of the system, even those that do have the WYSIWYG tools, who gain even a basic knowledge of html, can control the formatting and layout of their pages to a much higher level.

The real problem with copying and pasting from other software packages is that pages defaulted to the front home page of the site are affected by foreign tags in the word processing packages and are not displayed properly.  This problem can be fixed in a number of ways in addition to controlling the HTML code and is discussed in more detail on the Text Formatting Problems page of the Troubleshooting section.

How much HTML do I have to learn?

You may learn as much HTML as you would like to know, but to successfully upload content onto the PLC site pages, you only need to know a few basics, such as how to bold a heading, make the font for a heading a larger size, insert a line break, etc.  Just learning a few techniques is all you need, but if you become comfortable with using HTML, you can have much more control over where images are inserted in a page, different formats of images, inserting hyperlinks and automatic email windows, etc.

The most important of these techniques, with relevant examples, are shown on these pages, and a very good source of basic HTML instruction can be found on the What is HTML? pages of the Developer's Guidelines area of the Online Learning section of the Learning Place. These pages will show the basics of the structure of a simple HTML page, tags and how they are used, how most tags are arranged in pairs etc.