Oh my HTML

USC’s Annenberg School for Communication is preparing its students in the journalism program for the real world by taking a new direction in some of the curriculum. Like many media outlets around the world (like the New York Times and CNN, and other news organizations that are exclusively online, like the Drudge Report) have been doing, Annenberg is gearing its class toward online journalism.

How is Annenberg doing this?

The school has set up classes that are online specific with the goal of giving students the tools necessary to make it in the ever-changing world of online. From building web sites and blogs to creating multimedia slide shows, students are getting hands-on experience working with online elements.

Online specific classes include “Multimedia and Graphics in Online Publishing,” an online journalism seminar and “Introduction to Online Media,” the class I am currently enrolled in.

Class Assignments

One of our first assignments was to create a homepage, which Annenberg has provided to each student. In order to familiarize students with the basic building blocks of the internet, raw HTLM coding. Though the HTML code looks like it is written in a completely different language, once the user can see the pattern, it is easy to navigate and make simple changes, like font size and color. (I did the color myself, but blogger did the size. Apparently, I need to study more!)

Do we really need to know HTML?

I can definitely see the importance of understanding what HTML code looks like, so thank you Annenberg for giving me my own home page to work on. But with sites like www.blogger.com, the need for knowledge of HTML is dwindling.



It is much easier to go to a site, create an account, choose a template and start blogging than it is to download programs that allow you to transfer files, both text and images, to the Internet one by one. With easy to follow, step-by-step directions, site creators, like www.blogger.com and Dreamweaver, are a better alternative to use than building a page from scratch using raw HTML. It seems that it is more time-efficient as well.

But Annenberg has its heart in the right place by giving its students a basic knowledge of the language used to create the future online media outlets that they will surely become a part of.