Digital Writing

What’s Next? Finding the Fun in HTML

Liam Justiniano

Christina Truong, did a wonderful video walking us through HTML via the LinkedIn platform.

There were never moments where I had to go out to another tab to look up a term she was talking about or needed any other supplementary tutorials. HTML is a very… tricky program to learn especially for a beginner (like myself) and Truong was able to walk me through HTML without me getting confused or too intimidated.

With her Linkedin Lesson she very thoroughly and clearly explained HTML. Her approach felt very manageable and I did not find myself overwhelmed by her explanations. Areas where there might have been some confusion were supplemented with practices that we were able to do on our own and afterwards she would even walk through the same example. It was very easy to spot where I had messed up and what I needed to fix and I was able to go back and try it again and watch her explanations again until I got it down. 

It’s been so interesting to see behind the curtains for the online world just learning about HTML, but now actually being able to manipulate and understand is a different level. Engaging with HTML makes me realize how much I’ve used HTML without really understanding what I was doing. 

Experimenting with the style and layout of HTML has actually been fun, because I am not worried about “what will this allow me to do?”, but rather “what’s next? what else can I do?” and that is very exciting! I keep finding new tools and new ways to play around with HTML and different tags. There’s always something new that I can go ahead and try and work with.

I use W3Schools for help. W3Schools is THE web developer site to learn about HTML and find new things to play around with. They have a bunch of tools and resources. My favorite recently is using the HTML symbols to insert certain emojis or arrows which would make a website more engaging and less of a wall of text without tackling the layout of inserting pictures into HTML which is something that I am still practicing. 

I found the lesson about accessibility very interesting. I don’t think I ever thought about the fact that there might be organizations creating rules and standards for HTML The World Wide Web Consortium is the group that runs the standards for HTML. Using their HTML validators helps me find small little issues with my code and from there I’m able to actually learn what I did wrong rather than just maybe a red squiggle. 

These resources are great for me because before I knew next to nothing about computers and the steps that happen behind the scenes. The LinkedIn lessons, W3Schools and the World Wide Web Consortium are all tools that broke down HTML into manageable bites. Overall the process was a whole lot less intimidating and it actually made the process of learning fun and I want to continue to spend time playing with it and learn and find out “what’s next“?

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3 responses to “What’s Next? Finding the Fun in HTML”

  1. arbeez Avatar
    arbeez

    What you mentioned about using HTML without even knowing it really struck a chord with me! I never realized how innocuous markup languages could be. I think I came in to this HTML journey thinking that this would be some complicated coding process. Instead, I thought “This is surprisingly easy….” Tedious, yes. But I’ve already been familiarized with the process through something so simple as writing on AO3. When it comes to the crux of that “What’s next?” question, I think (for me at least) the answer is to go further. Discover more. Now that we’ve laid the foundation, we can start to push boundaries.

  2. davidninja Avatar
    davidninja

    Christina Truong did a great job explaining HTML in her LinkedIn sessions, but I was still intimidated by the process. Honestly, coding makes me nervous. Even with websites like W3Schools that literally help in every way possible, I still feel like it is another language (it basically is). I know practice makes perfect, and if I used Visual Studio Code more and watched her lessons more, it would definitely click. I am glad there are lessons out there and websites to help assist though. I agree that behind the scenes of each website is interesting, and I believe that the people who have the time and patience to make them are extremely talented.

  3. goosefeet22 Avatar
    goosefeet22

    I really like your perspective on HTML. Learning it has been very freeing, in my opinion, because of a lot of the things you mention. Being able to not only see the back end of websites and digital creation, but interact with it and create your own is really awesome. I also agree that the videos were really great. I liked having the ability to follow along in CodePen and see the outcome of the code I put in. I was also amazed at how much HTML affects what we use online. It really is the foundation to everything digital. I think having accessibility rules creates a really great foundation for allowing everyone to be online and in the digital world! Personally, it does feel a little bit overwhelming to know just how much goes into making a website, but having a basic understanding of the way the sausage gets made, actually makes me appreciate the sausage more.

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