Need help with interactive learning site

First let me say that I am working hard to learn drupal, and in fact I am learning every day. After just a short time with it, I can't understand why anyone would want to create old-fashioned websites anymore. Drupal is really the greatest. But please be patient if I sound like I have no idea what I'm doing right now, because I really don't.

I am building an online learning site, and I'd like to ask for a little help. My first course will be Business Writing. To manage the lessons, I intend to use a Book (one book per course). The lessons are in the form of video and audio lectures, with a good dose of slides or flash presentations. After each lesson, students will be required to do some writing, which will be graded and fed back to them, all through the e-learning site.

So the first thing I need help with is building a simple lesson page. I would appreciate any help, and will share the final product freely.

I think the best way to do the lesson page is to create a new content-type: lesson.

That page will consist of:

• the Book name (i.e. the name of the course)
• the subtitle (name of the current lesson)
• a media player (I'm particularly fond of flowplayer, but open to suggestions)

Besides the title and subtitle, the media player is the only element on the page, and should occupy a large part of the screen. No menus or sidebars. Since this is a book page, it should be easy enough to navigate back home.

I know this is pretty elementary stuff, but I've tried building this page myself, and I'm having a bit of trouble. I can get the player to show up, but I'm having trouble getting it to show the video.

I would appreciate any assistance. I'll post my second question in another post, just so I don't make this one too long. cheers.