Web Building Tutorials

For bloggers and web designers alike, there often comes a point in your creative efforts when you want to see something other than what the editor program has decided your website will be.  

For your district-hosted website, you will continue to use Adobe Contribute to create and edit your site.  You will not be using HTML to edit Contribute!

However, if you, like so many of your colleagues, want to create your own blog or wiki and then find yourself hankering to tinker from the inside out, you may wish to acquire some skills in using HTML code.  You do NOT need to attend a class to acquire those skills.  HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language, and it is comprised of symbols set off by <>, or tags, that tell the web how to display your images and text.  You can see what it looks like for this page you're reading now by going to your menu on your browser, click "View" then "Page Source".  You should see something weird that looks like this:

<a class="topnav" href="/sitemap.asp">Tutorials</a> | 
<a class="topnav" href="/sitemap.asp">References</a> | 
<a class="topnav" href="/sitemap.asp">Examples</a> | 

Strategies to become HTML-savvy to the level that serves your needs include the following:

• Start up a blog for yourself, and when you are in edit mode, click on the "HTML" or "Code" button and look at the code that the editor is writing for you automatically as you work in visual mode.  See if you can figure out what the code means.  It wouldn't hurt to have a list of tags or examples handy to see what they are coding for in the site.
  
• Sit down with a patient friend who uses HTML and watch.  Take cookies with you to share.
• Take an online tutorial class, free of charge at w3schools.  Click on the logo to see what they offer.  You will also find lists of other courses to take to build your web-building repertoire:

•  Have fun, and don't stress.  Anything you do can be undone as long as you don't hit the "save" button.