HTML is a markup language, it’s the standard of the Internet. Most written words are viewed in HTML on websites. A website is not just a webpage. There is a server behind it, and what that server can do for you is critical. For this chapter, I’ll be talking about a page in HTML with a minimal web server. A page that will be available online that almost every university institution will give to you if you ask for it.
The beauty of HTML is that it’s relatively young and highly widespread. It’s not going to die before you stop being a productive member of society.
Lecturers’ view
Entering content on a webpage is easy nowadays. You will get the access and usually a WYSIWYG editor. You can enter text, links, upload files and videos, stream. You may even be able to add animated pictures and interactive charts. When you update your content, it’s updated. There is no distribution to be done. One way at the ETH is to open your own blog and use the WordPress ‘Page’ function. What you can’t do is add any functionalities (interactivity with tracking, annotation, integration with LMS like moodle, etc.).
Students’ view
Students in general will not be so happy. They will save the content of your page as a PDF or print it. If you change the content in the middle of the semester they will become angry because they will have to save or print it again. And then, all the notes they have taken will be in another PDF file or on some other paper. They may be happy looking at videos or other animations for visualization purposes and thankful that you took the time to put it there. Nevertheless, these will not appear in their PDF or on their printouts. And if at some point they are offline, well… moodle is out of reach, too.
Technical side
There is quite some knowledge around the web, and you can do almost anything we expect. Still, if you want real interactivity, collaboration and integration, you’ll need a server behind your webpage that will allow you to use the features that arise when you’re on an intelligent machine, digital and connected. Depending on what you want, there is a downside, some things will work well on certain devices in certain browsers, some won’t.
Large videos can make websites slower but the IT guys are dealing well with this. YouTube, for example, even if you do not notice it, will show you the video that is appropriate for your device and your bandwith. More and more websites also use a responsive design in order to look good and right on different devices that are considerably diverse in size. The Internet is constructed to be connected, therefore the ‘net’ in Internet. The files on the Internet are automatically shared and this means possible collaboration. A file that lies on your computer is not.
Online and Offline
Being only available online may also be a downside, especially for students who live in the mountains and, I’ve heard, take certain routes on certain trains. Except for that, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be online. You can get enough data with your Internet/Telecom provider for ten bucks a month. The ultimate question, though, is how do you want to watch the videos, that interactive graph if you’re not online. Saving everything on every hard drive on every device you own and installing all the software that is needed everywhere is not a viable option, either. And it’s much more painful. People who are offline now and then will have to deal with it. Either they will not work/learn in that specific time or they can prepare something to take along. If we’re talking about a webpage, they can quickly save the content that can be saved as a pdf for this purpose, and even print it if they really want to. On a more hopeful note, Google Maps lets you cache certain areas of maps on your mobile device in order for you to continue to be able to navigate even if you happened to cross the border (and have no data anymore). If the need for caching a website is real, it will soon be available for mobile devices.
Summary
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Before scrolling down further, try summarizing what you have just read with this interactive summary tool right below. You will be presented with seven sets of statements. Choose the most appropriate for each! Basic features of the HTML format |
| Ease of use (authoring and portability) | GREAT with a Wysiwyg-Editor |
| Online/offline | ONLINE |
| Public/private annotation | May be POSSIBLE |
| Quiz with/w/o tracking | NOT without database |
| Videos | YES |
| Streaming | YES |
| Links | YES |
| Collaboration | PARTLY |
| Update cycle | Good |
Conclusion
HTML (on a standard web server) is safe and easy and gives you more possibilities than with PDF but you need more if you want to go all the way to collaboration and interactiviy. And, if you want your students to be able to work with it, there is something missing: the possibility for them to work digitally and online instead of saving the content to a private file that will be lonely forever.