As others have pointed out this is quite a challenge for the teacher. It's good that this teacher knows a bit of HTML and SQL, at least the teacher will be able to get around an editor, even if just barely. This is an important hurdle.

I think the choice of teaching Perl and CGI is a good way to approach it. Students are definitely going to be uninterested if they can't write programs that do something demonstrable, something they can see themselves and show to other people. As you say the "gee whiz" factor is high. The typical editing text files of most introductory Perl does not fit this bill.

Have you considered the configuration and care of the Web Server they'll be using? It'd be cool if they have Linux or *BSD so that you could easily manage it remotely and look into the problems, but the Server is an additional cost to the setup of this class.

I've done a bit of volunteering and seen a lot more. One piece of advice. See if you can get together a support group to help with this project. As others have recommended, recommend that they have speakers in the class giving lessons, showing advanced examples to inspire, etc. Definitely, try to find someone to help with the questions and setup problems. It's more important that you can keep helping out rather than just burn out and stop altogether.

In reply to Re: Can a non-programmer teach Perl? by jordanh
in thread Can a non-programmer teach Perl? by Ovid

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.