Html5 is the new magical solution for cross-device publications. It is all the rave for mobile developers and newbies. The amazing thing about html5 however, is that it is not really breathtakingly new. In fact, like Brian Fling (expert in mobile design, so connect to his media to stay updated) mentioned on his blogpost on html5 anatomy: "if you know HTML, then chances are you’ll understand what’s new in HTML5 in under an hour."Teach yourself html5
For those of you with html5 expertise, simply take the free, online html5 course offered by W3C.
But to make really beautiful html5 accessible webpages, you need to digg into Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) as well as they will allow you to produce an eye-catching look and feel. This is also at anyone's fingertips thanks to the W3C tutorial on CSS.
Now you have the basic coding, you have a nice look and feel, this combination will already allow you to publish neat html5 pages. But for those wanting to run the extra mile, the only thing that remains is to add more interactivity and for this you can use JavaScript. Take a look at these 6 free JavaScript books and tutorials from the read and write blog.
Why is html suddenly back as the best webpage coding language?
Let's be honest html is an easy coding language, as such it was put into a corner a bit, pressed away by php, asp, and other more complex coding languages. So I wondered, why did it become cool again to use html?
I feel that with the rise of html5 we see a rise in specialization in instructional design. This makes room for instructional designers that are in fact no longer building designs from scratch, but who use templates and designer tools to put any content in a beautiful and accessible jacket.
And ... of course html5 enables designers to come up with cross device designs, even allowing a variety of mobile phones to access material in a pleasing way (well, it is not that standardized yet, but we are getting there).
For those wanting to test there html5 coding
If you do delve into the html5 code and you have come up with some pages, make sure to test drive them through the free W3C markup validation tool. You have two validation tools, one is for html in general: html validation markup.
And one focuses on mobile html (great tool!), which will allow you to feel confident with the coding you are providing (and that it fits specific browser needs): Mobile Validation.
Looking for an easier option? Use html5 authoring tools
Simply take a look at these html5 designer tools:
Rapid Intake Mobile Studio (I really recommend this one, sooo easy!) and it allows publication to both Flash and html5, so really useful and it has scorm compliant quizzes (for the LMS lovers amongst us): http://www.rapidintake.com/products/mobile/mobile-learning-studio/
And an interesting tool from Adobe Labs, Edge (to download it you will need to make an Adobe account if you don't have one yet): there is an Edge 2 preview you can download http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/edge/
For those using Mac, there is a nice app, the Tumult Hype app: http://tumultco.com/hype/
IBM has also launched a html5 authoring tool project, called Maqetta, but to look at this tool you need to upgrade (if needed) your browser to Firefox 4, Chrome 5 or Safari 5. This tool has to be installed on your server. Get more information here: http://maqetta.org
Why is html suddenly back as the best webpage coding language?
Let's be honest html is an easy coding language, as such it was put into a corner a bit, pressed away by php, asp, and other more complex coding languages. So I wondered, why did it become cool again to use html?
I feel that with the rise of html5 we see a rise in specialization in instructional design. This makes room for instructional designers that are in fact no longer building designs from scratch, but who use templates and designer tools to put any content in a beautiful and accessible jacket.
And ... of course html5 enables designers to come up with cross device designs, even allowing a variety of mobile phones to access material in a pleasing way (well, it is not that standardized yet, but we are getting there).
For those wanting to test there html5 coding
If you do delve into the html5 code and you have come up with some pages, make sure to test drive them through the free W3C markup validation tool. You have two validation tools, one is for html in general: html validation markup.
And one focuses on mobile html (great tool!), which will allow you to feel confident with the coding you are providing (and that it fits specific browser needs): Mobile Validation.
Looking for an easier option? Use html5 authoring tools
Simply take a look at these html5 designer tools:
Rapid Intake Mobile Studio (I really recommend this one, sooo easy!) and it allows publication to both Flash and html5, so really useful and it has scorm compliant quizzes (for the LMS lovers amongst us): http://www.rapidintake.com/products/mobile/mobile-learning-studio/
And an interesting tool from Adobe Labs, Edge (to download it you will need to make an Adobe account if you don't have one yet): there is an Edge 2 preview you can download http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/edge/
For those using Mac, there is a nice app, the Tumult Hype app: http://tumultco.com/hype/
IBM has also launched a html5 authoring tool project, called Maqetta, but to look at this tool you need to upgrade (if needed) your browser to Firefox 4, Chrome 5 or Safari 5. This tool has to be installed on your server. Get more information here: http://maqetta.org
