How to develop a training portal with SharePoint 2010

Our company is planning to develop a database that would contain all our training material/tests/reading material/etc. and I need advice how to develop this. This will include our in-house training as well. I was advised that SharePoint 2010 would be more than adequate.

Every client obviously has different needs, but this is what we normally do if we train staff at a facility: Provide pre-training reading material, sometimes a pre-test, training for 3-5 days, which will include a PowerPoint presentation, case studies and mock surveys, a post-training test, post-training feedback to be filled in by the trainees, analysis of the results.
For instance- For every presentation, one will need an attendance list, icebreakers, the PP slides, the "mock survey" documents, feedback, tests, etc.
So the main goal is to set up a database/platform that will include all these components which will then include a knowledge database, links to sites, etc.

This is what I had in mind, but I am open for any suggestions/any other structure that might help:
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii62/avz10/1-6.jpg

These are the different categories/departments that provide training, except for “Generic documents” that would include blank forms e.g. attendance registers, etc.

Per category/department this will sub-headings as seen e.g. pre-training reading material, participants, curricula,
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii62/avz10/2ComponentsofStdInterpr.jpg
In Powerpoint presentations, these will be different groupings e.g. Standard Interpretation training which will include different trainees/contracts
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii62/avz10/3Presentationstodifferentgroups.jpg
And under “General” there will be some examples of presentations.

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii62/avz10/4Presentationsundergeneral.jpg

I have started in vigour- reading about SharePoint, YouTube videos, etc.; BUT when I open my SharePoint 2010, the images that I see in the tutorials are just not the same.
We have MS SharePoint Workspace installed on our computers, so it does not look if I can create the central "server" or portal from my laptop. Is this correct?
If so, what MS software should I need?

And then, a last issue- if this is portal is hosted on our server, I suppose we can access the portal both internally and externally-but the size of the PP presentations will be too big to transfer externally. Is this correct?

This is my suggestion. But I would think that there might be numerous of these as examples somewhere??
Thanks for any advice!!