Newb question about a site idea

Hello all,

I am a computer network engineer with many years of technical experience. I recently decided to slow things down a bit and leave the corporate world and I took a job as a professor at a state college. I was discussing the idea of building a personal website where I would create how-to guides and quick reference material concerning all things IT (Information Technology). One of my students pointed me here and said I may be able to make some extra money on the side is I placed some ads from google on the site.

I have spent several days checking out the forums here, and I looked for a newb section but didnt see one so if this is in the wrong place to post this please excuse me. The site here has really opened my eyes about what is going on in the internet.

My question is, do any of you experienced IM'ers think a site like mine could work for google adsense? Computers and IT on the internet are very saturated and from what I read in others posts here you need a niche to work in that is not heavily used. My site would have several different sections covering a wide variety of IT subjects and I was also thinking of adding a blog to discuss some of the topics that pop up in my classes as well as trends I see in the field of computing.

BTW, I am a network guy, I deal with routers, servers and firewalls and have almost no web development background. This stuff is all new to me. Any advice is greatly appreciated.