Well you are new to wordpress blogging software and wish a versitility in display of contents. Like you could wish if i  have ability to place wigets in posts and pages just like sidebars, wish to display wigets on not all pages but selectively and want your own or WP php in posts,pages,sidebars. So here are three widgets those will make your life easy.

Widget Logic
This plugin gives every widget an extra control field called "Widget logic" that lets you control the pages that the widget will appear on. Like you want a particular widget which appear on home page only you can simply put logic is_home() in extra field. more detail and widget itself can be found at Widget logic page

WP page widget
This plugin will help to  put widget area on any page or post by simple short code. then you can easily put any widget in that area. WP page widget can be downloaded from wordpress site.

PHP code widget
Normal text wiget let you put any arbitry text/html in sidebars or any widget area but with PHP code widget you can put any php in that widget. Very helpful for custon content display.

So with these three  wordpress widgets  users can get much of the desired  felexibility . Hope you like the post . Let me know it by posting comenets.