Greetings

[mamo]

Hello Lisa, hello everyone,

I am brand new here and in general new to the world of web-design and coding. I am a language teacher who has a clear goal to create and maintain a professional website for my students. I teach ESL (English as a Second Language) and have had in mind to create a site where my students can improve their listening skills. i am not sure what systems I need to use to have a Forum similar to this one, a chat room, a community area where people can create a profile and make friends with others around the world and the main part which is an area where they can listen to various recorded pieces of conversation and text to help them improve their skills.

I know for a noobie this is a lot of work and many of you are thinking ... ah man, just hire a pro and leave us alone. Unfortunately a teachers salary doesn't allow that so I have taken on the tasks of writing the material finding volunteer actors to play the parts for a better effect, creating everything the site needs as far as information and all that Jazz by myself, of course I have help from people here and there when they have time to help but now it's crunch time and I really need help on a regular basis.

Wow now that I have babbled (no pun intended) on i leave you to read and decide if you wish to help me out. It looks like the people here are really laid back and have a good sense of community ... hope to be an active part of this group and learn from you what I can and teach the lower level people.

Cheers,

Mamo

[lisa]

Welcome, mamo!

Well for starters, you are going to need a web host with a decent amount of space to support that community you want to create. I would recommend powweb.com. They offer a ton of space so when you expand your site you won't have to worry about upgrading.

They also support offer the platform you need to build other interactive features (message board, chat room, forum, etc).

I understand you want to learn to build this yourself to save money, but if you're brand new to website creation it really is probably best to have someone else set this up for you. I'm not sure how customized you want your forum, chat room, etc but it's not as easy as just copy and pasting some code as if you are just putting up a regular website. There is quite a bit of programming behind a site like that.

The forum wouldn't be that hard, but if you want one like this it will cost you. I paid $160 for this forum (vbulletin.com) and I installed it myself. It wasn't too difficult but you do need to understand a little about uploading web files and you'll need some information from your web host. The same would go for a chat room or any other interactive features you'd want created.

Now there is a site out there called rentacoder.com. I use them for certain projects. You submit a bid explaining what you need done and coders from all over the world bid on your project. You can get some very good bids because these coders are competing for your business.

I know you don't want to pay a lot of money but I really think you'd be surprised at how reasonable the bids can be. Not sure what your budget is, but if you're not familiar with uploading scripts...it's going to be much faster to outsource this project. Then once it's all setup you would just maintain it.

Sounds like you have a very neat job. I really hope you can find the help you need here.