Dear Educators; Learn HTML

Pushing the LMS - Part 1

I can understand this seems unconventional, asking educators who use a Learning Management System (LMS) such as Moodle, Canvas or Brightspace to take time to learn and utilize HTML. After all, the LMS takes care of a lot of the heavy lifting when creating web pages to deliver your curriculum.

As an educator, building and structuring curriculum on an institution's LMS tool, in fact makes you a web designer. One that is focused on delivering content-centric learning experiences that might include text, documents, media and more. Considering the educator's job has evolved to crafting learning (user) experiences, wouldn’t it make sense to have a basic understanding of the most important tool at your disposal—Hypertext Markup Language or commonly known as HTML.

Learning how to use content-centric HTML code used to display the curriculum empowers confidence in using the system to it's full potential and appreciating how to troubleshoot formatting issues. This includes headings, paragraphs, hyperlinks, imagery, media and so much more. Understanding a bit of HTML can help you create well-structured web pages by strategically using headings that will improve user experience and accessibility for all students regardless of their abilities.

The HTML Primer for eLearning is a resource I have designed to help educators understand the fundamentals of content-centric HTML. This HTML primer not only simplifies learning HTML, but also provides effective, accessible, and engaging side-by-side examples. With just a little HTML knowledge, you can fix formatting issues efficiently, ensure compatibility across different LMS platforms, and create well-structured content—saving you time and making your course materials look their best.

Created with non-coders in mind, the HTML file logically walks you through practical, step-by-step methods to leverage available HTML functionality you can include in your own course layout, add emphasis where needed, and create clear, structured headings that resonate with your students.

In any LMS or CMS, simply copy all the HTML code in the HTML Primer document and paste this code into a new page within your organization's LMS using the HTML editing function.

Whether it's enhancing accessibility, creating better learning outcomes, or simply making sure your content looks good, this primer can help you get your course material up to speed for winter. Start enhancing your course content today with the HTML Primer.

Check out the HTML Primer for eLearning on GitHub.com and look for the HTML-Primer.html file. There you can either copy the HTML text or download the HTML file. If you decide to try out the HTML Primer, let me know! Share your comments and thoughts below, I'd love to hear your experience and how I can improve this resource.

Want more resources to make the most of your LMS? Visit my Relearning eLearning GitHub page or check out my paper on Student User Experience.

#eLearning #StudentUserExperience #SUX #LMS

Next time in the Pushing the LMS series, we'll dive into the Bootstrap V4 Framework, a tool widely used across many modern websites, including LMS platforms like Moodle. Using the Bootstrap for LMS resource I developed, educators can easily leverage built-in features to add rich design elements and interactive functionality to their curriculum through a growing expertise of HTML.