Me and an Art professor want to start a local forum so we can post stuff to share and maybe help each other out and help some of our students with arduino projects. Is there any way to start a local board on this forum? A lot of forums have local boards where locals can talk about stuff and be able to meet up and share/exchange/trade. How does someone do this on arduino's forum? Thanks.
Why not share it with all of us, for added benefit of all? 
I believe lots of the discussions will be class related, although sharing is no problem. I remember every time semesters start, you will see kids with not enough internet manner will ask questions everywhere on this forum to get their homework done. As a teacher, I'd like to avoid or contain that. Plus having a local/state board helps keep local hobbyists connected. Don't you think so AlphaBeta?
You might try posting the question / suggestion in the "Forum", forum.
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?board=forum_meta
Thanks James. I've posted a question there.
Seeing as Arduino is used as an educational product so frequently, maybe it's not so much a local forum (well, by school maybe..) but a Teacher/Student interaction forum might be a good idea- for the reasons you mentioned.
Another alternative is to set up an external site or blog (I use blogspot.com, google runs it).. I'm just trying to envision what structure might benefit you as a teacher and your students the most, in terms of support and interaction.
Arduino is awesome, but it does leave the novice with a lot of questions.. even if the novice has been at it for a few decades in one way or another. The biggest key is getting that foundation, and the best way to do that is to do it. Early, easy successes breeds enthusiasm, and enthusiasm breeds independant learning. Along the way, I taught for a time, and getting students engaged is 99% of the battle.
Between the Reference and the Examples, you've got a great starter curriculum... if a student can modify existing code to meet their needs, they've understood the function of the code. Remember how tickled you were on a certain level when you first uploaded and ran "Blink"?
"Hello World" is an itch you can't stop loving to scratch..
Thanks for your remarks focalist. I'll try my best to keep my student engaged. I heard from someone that a professor should be an entertainer in lectures so students feel the fun and will like to do the hard work to understand what's behind the fun.
I have colleagues that work in educational research, where learning outcomes measure relative improvement of student understanding. I think it's simply wrong to measure that. If you succeed in motivating your students, they will learn stuff on their own, even stuff you didn't teach in class. That will make relative improvement extremely big. But in a regular class, relative improvment = (semester end - semester beginning)/(semester beginning), which is a fraction. I'd like to see huge numbers. ;D In how many classes that one teachs does the professor expect to find that students begin to know more than the teacher? I want that.