HTML is the new English

I usually blog tutorials around the design/web arena, and have been wanting to create a little section of this site to where I can rant and or rave about a few topics. This post is the first of such.

First of all, let it be known that I teach for a living. I enjoy it. I teach at a 2 year college. I teach web design. Most of my students are “designers”. I’ve noticed a few things.

1. People think web design is easy. (thanks a lot wordpress, weebly, myspace, blogspot, frontpage, insert favorite WYSYWYG here etc..)
2. Most of the students sort of know what “HTML” is. (“It’s the Internet language stuff…”)
3. 6 years ago, most didn’t know who nor what HTML is.

This is a pretty significant shift, in a few short years.

With as pervasive as the internet has become, residing in most everyones pocket, the Internet and its language are the communication standard of the 21st century. I can see if a few short years. HTML being taught right alongside English, Math, & Science. Our middle schools will soon be teaching their students how to deliver, consume, and author content on the web. When they reach college level learning, HTML will be like English. It will be the non-verbal communication tool that all people will need to know. Those who don’t learn it, will be the minority or disadvantaged.

Whether or not they use the language daily or not, they will be better employees/managers for having attained the skill.

HTML is the new English my friends.

Maybe in some future not-so-distant date, instead of the facebook and twitters and picassas, and g pluses, we will all just have our own domains. Instead of signing in to a business site to make social connections, I just connect my domain to my friends domain. I control my content, my look, my ads, my design, my services, my widgets etc.

Aside from the business/entertainment side of the web, I see the “Social Web” as a giant mashup of Blogspot blogs meets Facebook meets Myspace, meets Twitter meets WordPress.org CMS meets RSS meets XML, where users are in control of their own domain, and create sites that are more of an extension of themselves. The connections are made between the domains. Standards arise to define new types of “social” content syndication. People write widgets and plugins that users can easily integrate/subsribe to/purchase.

The evolving notification world of mobile comes to the web. I’m notified of the ongoings of my social domain. I lose my address books and “contacts”. These social connections are my contacts. I decide how to categorize or label them. The programmers and developers create the products, I am the master of my domain. HTML gives me that ability and power.

HTML is the new English.

Category: opinion