Module Position Module positions are placeholders in a template. They identify positions within the template and tell the Joomla! application where to place output from modules assigned to a particular position. The template designer has complete control over module positions, creating variations between templates and the respective Joomla! default positions assigned to modules in the installation sample data. For example, the module position Left could be defined to be on the left side of the template to display a site navigation menu. So if a module is assigned the Left position, it will be displayed wherever the designer puts that Left module position - not necessarily the left side of the page. Reference: http://docs.joomla.org/Glossary
CSS A Cascading Style Sheet or CSS is used to control the presentation of an XHTML page. For example, a CSS file will often control the font, margins, color, background graphics, and other aspects of a web page's appearance. CSS allows you to separate the content of an XHTML page from it's appearance. In Joomla!, CSS files (for example, template.css) are normally part of the template. Reference: http://docs.joomla.org/Glossary