Not sure what method would be the best. Every year I design a site for my class so people can check, get info from the class rep, any announcements and mainly to download lecture notes. First year I made a normal site with pages for each subject and where I uploaded each time the notes and had to update the page. Got to be a pain but everyone liked it. 2nd year was a message board. Not many people took advantage even though I didn't have to upload the files all the time. They didn't feel like registering, etc. Plus many of em don't know what the internet is. 3rd year I tried a torrent site. Worked well but people gave up. Now I'm stuck. I want to make a simple site like first year but I don't feel like updating it every time. I'm lazy. How should I go about this? Would a blog work? are there plugins for like wordpress or b2evolution where I can allow people (registered) to upload but anyone to download? I got Fantastico on my server so I can use one of these options

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Although I'm not a huge fan of the product in general, it sounds like everything you want to do can be handled by the Google Sites product very easily and for free. You can choose a variety of authentication schemes, including read-only for everyone and limited access to posting content. You can have announcements, notes, uploads, etc. all integrated into the main page.

I'd suggest taking a look. If you want to see one in action you can look at one I've started for planning an FT DO here.

Hmm I do got a dedicated server so I wouldn't want to use googles stuff in general.

for my personal use, I use Phorum. Nothing too exciting, but it does what
I want. I can post my notes and keep them password protected. And people
and share or discuss.. looks very similar to FT. And its free.

I have my own server too, and I use it for some things, but when someone else takes care of all the little things, like setting up and maintaining the infrastructure, handling user registration and associated tasks and generally just makes things easy for me I see no reason to depend on my own server. I do use my own custom domain name for it.

Hmm true.
Does that google option allow user to upload and download files?

Yeap. You can give permissions to people at different levels..
either read-only or you can allow them to change or
upload files to the site.
(this is regarding google sites)

Um, I'm trying to figure out how this thread relates to travel.

I would look at Moodle and Sakai, both open source alternative to Blackboard. You could also of course use Blackboard, though the others are free.