It's a worthwhile attempt, Andrew. Back in 2000 I began teaching people who were beginners in digital here at the retirement community where my wife and I have spent our winters for many years.
Most of the people who attended the classes were people who'd had some experience with film cameras -- mainly the "you click the button, we do the rest" kind, but also a few who'd done more serious amateur photography. One was a retired pro with decades of experience with film, who hadn't yet plunged into the digital world, and who incidentally became a close friend.
At first I had about 35 people in the class, but after the first couple sessions, as they began to grasp basics like the relationship between variable ISO and noise and began to understand that at a point-and-shoot level digital cameras work the same way as film cameras, the class size began to drop. When we were down to about fifteen people I began to shift away from technical stuff to things like the elements of composition and the idea that with the LCD screen on a digital camera you no longer really needed a light meter. What I found as the class continued to shrink was that the serious amateurs wanted a running start at the difference between film and digital, but once they had that, they were interested enough to learn the rest by experimenting on their own.
Those days are gone forever. I'm still part of an active photography group that teaches, but we don't see beginners any longer. The novelty of digital is gone, and the new cameras are so well automated that beginners no longer seek instruction. That seems a happy thought because the point-and-shooters can point-and-shoot and have a lot of fun doing it without needing to learn anything new, and at the same time the serious shooters can concentrate on their art without having to spend years internalizing the technical details that were involved in film photography. It's a whole new world.
I hope you're able to play to a full house, but I doubt it'll happen.
