Don't get me wrong, I am an HTML geek, myself. I'm a huge advocate for well-formed, semantically-appropriate HTML in the development of web pages. I think HTML can be a powerful tool.
That said, I think the need for people seeking to publish to the Web to know HTML is on a rapid decline.
Six or seven years ago, if I wanted to put this very message on the Web, I would have:
- Written the text in Microsoft Word so that I could spell and grammar check it.
- Opened Dreamweaver.
- Created a new HTML page based upon a template I previously designed.
- Copy the text from Word into Notepad (before the days of Notepad++).
- Copy the text from Notepad into Dreamweaver (so that Word's proprietary formatting would get stripped out).
- Saved the HTML file to my hard drive.
- Opened WSFTP (before the days of FileZilla).
- Connected to my server.
- Uploaded the file.
- Downloaded the most recent version of server-side include that contained the navigation menu for the site.
- Updated the navigation menu in Dreamweaver.
- Uploaded the navigation menu file via FTP.
- Opened Mozilla 1.3 (before the days of Firefox and Chrome).
- Navigated to my site.
- Clicked on the menu item for my new webpage.
- Felt the satisfaction of having published to the Web.
Whew! Can you relate to that workflow?
Today, we have tools such as
Blogger,
WordPress,
Drupal, and many more to publish to the Web. E-learning-specific publishing tools are built into every LMS I know (with the option of using the older approach). The workflow for this message was:
- Opened Firefox 3,
- Navigated to my site,
- Logged in,
- Clicked "Compose Post" (actually, I clicked on drafts as I've been sitting on this post for a while),
- Wrote and formatted the message directly within a rich text editor in my browser window (using the spell-check features built directly into the browser),
- Clicked Preview just to be sure everything looked good (and because I can so easily preview the post on the live website without the public being able to see the post),
- Clicked Publish,
- Returned to my site to see the post, automatically-updated navigation menus, and so much more interactivity possible via comments, RSS feeds, Twitter integration, and more than was possible in the old workflow.
No HTML knowledge required. The system knows how to turn my content into appropriate HTML. Thus, the people who built the system need mastery understanding of HTML, but I don't. And while I don't think the publishing tools within LMSes such as
Moodle and
D2L are as sophisticated as those in mainstream CMSes, I think they do suffice for most e-learning professionals' needs. There are arguments concerning the knowledge required to establish presentation and functionality (besides content, the other two legs of the three-legged stool of Web design), but I'll address each of those in later posts.
To be honest, there is a part of me that is pained by this -- all of those hours I spent learning HTML are less relevant. Not completely irrelevant, as they helped me get to where I am today and I still use that knowledge some, but certainly a lot less than I used to. That is the nature of progress, though -- old mundane tasks and knowledge become assumed a new technology that frees the individual to focus on what the technology cannot do. Gutenberg's press allowed people to focus less on copying individual letters (something technology could do) and more on creating new works (something people can do). I'm sure there were a bunch of scribes who were initially upset by Gutenberg's invention. I suspect, however, that their experience in transcription opened doors to other, more satisfying forms of service. Similarly, with Web-based rich text editors, content publishers can worry less about knowing
how to publish to the Web and more about
what to publish.
But enough of my soapbox -- what do you think? When do you think e-learning professionals need HTML knowledge (we can discuss presentation and functionality later)? For those who have used HTML knowledge in the past, how are you applying that knowledge today?
