Hypertext is the underlying concept defining the structure of the World Wide Web — says Wikipedia. I love hypertext and so should you, because that's what we're going to be working with.
Slides
You can download a PDF version here.
Mozilla X-Ray Goggles
The bookmarklet can be found here. We will use this little tool to start with, but will move on to using
A selection of HTML tags
I have used Paul Robert Lloyd’s Styleguide as an example of common tags and what they are used for. The version prepared for this session can be found here.
Documentation
HTML5 Doctor has a comprehensive list of many tags with explanation what they are used for. Another good source of documentation is DocHub.
Learning some more in your own time
Code Academy has some good exercises that can help you become proficient at HTML (and CSS, but we’ll talk about it at the next session).
History of HTML
If you’re interested in history of HTML, and how it’s evolved, I suggest Jeremy Keith’s essay The Design of HTML5 or his talk at fronteers (especially the beginning):
More about HTML5
Mark Pilgrim put together a very comprehensive guide to HTML5’s new features.
The infrastructure
I’m not sure we will have the time to talk about it during any of the sessions, but this is important. The internet and the web aren’t magical, they rely on physical infrastructure. Who owns it and who has control over it should interest you. I suggest starting with James Bridle’s essay.