HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the basic language used to create pages for the Web. It tells the browsers what to display and what actions to take when we click our mouse. HTML can be easily created, viewed and changed using a wide variety of editors.
Generally, you can use any simple ASCII Text Editor to create pages.
While purists use ASCII Text Editors to write all of their code, full featured WYSIWYG Web Authoring Tools are probably a good idea.
On the other hand, it is also important to actually know how to start from scratch to force oneself to understand what is happening within a page-- especially if you are going to be teaching students how to use the Web.
However, it can be very time consuming to type all the HTML tags needed to create interesting web pages (and also debugging the inevitable errors that happen in hand typed code). There are choices for editors that fall somewhere in between basic ASCII Text Editors and full featured WYSIWYG Web Authoring Tools.
The following basic HTML Editors allow you to insert HTML tags by highlighting text and clicking on a set of buttons at the top of the page. A very nice feature if your doing a lot of HTML tweaking, and don't want to spend too much time copying and pasting!
Locate, download, load and open one of these editors on your computer, then open the file you already created yesterday (lastname.htm).
Locate and add a HR using the editor (e.g., to indicate the start of a new day)
Write a brief description of what other editors or advanced authoring tools you have regularly used and/or have access to at home, school or work.