Don't think about design, think about usability . Students are not coming to your pages to fulfill an aesthetic need, but to access material and information for learning. As a web-site creator, you are also a graphic designer. Good artists borrow, great artists steal . Surf around, find things you like from other web sites, then view the source and learn to do something similar yourself.
Initial investment yields long-term dividends.
The most time-consuming part of site building comes at the beginning, when you are planning how the elements will work together. If you don't take enough time at that stage, you will spend a LOT of time backtracking and making changes. It's not print. Keep in mind that not only are fewer graphics effective on the web as compared to print, but that most graphics take some manipulation to work well in the electronic medium. To place an image on the page, simply drag the image file onto the PageMill document and move it into place.