HTML: A New Form of Independence.

Week 7

In middle school, I was obsessed with blogs and set on the idea that all of my friends and I should have one. But a paywall or lack of web knowledge was always in my way, as I could not create a fully working website myself, and lacked the financial resources to pay someone else to make a website for me. Eventually I got social media access and the dreams of having a blog faded away with my newfound ability to tweet. 

Now, in school for writing with little internet presence of said writing, the dreams of a blog have crept back up. This time around, though, I am in a class where I get to learn digital tools like HTML and create my own web content. 

Learning about HTML through Christina Truong’s, HTML Essential Training, made me more than eager to begin utilizing HTML on my own. Before her online lessons, I never recognized how accessible markup languages and web creation could be. While HTML does require some technology skills like being able to use markup typing software, online resources make the learning process more than easy. Truong’s lessons themself are extremely helpful, but other resources like w3schools have some great tools and tips when it comes to learning how to write and create in HTML. There are also a handful of online resources for actually writing and producing HTML, like Visual Studio Code, giving direct, free, access to HTML software.

I also find the language, or syntax, of HTML to be one of the most accessible when considering other markup languages. In my opinion, the syntax used in HTML is self-explanatory which makes it the easiest to navigate. I say self explanatory because in many cases the code or tag for an HTML element is the name of the wanted element itself. For example; if you want to tag an element as a heading, particularly a level one heading, the tag is <h1>. And, when a tag needs to be closed, it’s just that tag again with a forward slash: </h1> for closing a level one heading.

Like learning anything new, HTML definitely comes with its own learning curve and you’ll most likely be doing some troubleshooting. However, as someone who finds Microsoft Word daunting, the freedom of creation in HTML gives me hope when it comes to digital/online creation. 

While I am still a beginner and have to troubleshoot at basically every stage, I am beyond excited to utilize HTML in my writing, and look forward to creating (hopefully) my own website.