[tindleroot]

As a self-taught Blender animator, I would make sure anyone interested in animating got used to the software ASAP, because the learning curve is really high. Also, I would suggest teaching only a few students since not everyone will like/need to use animation (only a smaller team), and the more people you are teaching the harder it will be. Start out showing the basic modeling tools (grab, rotate, scale, extrude, etc.) and the GUI. Eventually, show everyone how to keyframe for animation, use materials and textures, camera movement, and lighting. After you cover the main topics for the animation and modeling, then you can cover the arguably easier part: the audio.

As I'm sure you know, the modeling is the bulk of an animation, and none of the mainstream animation software is easy to learn, much less master. Don't expect anyone to learn Blender well enough in a month to create an animation of decent quality, it takes a lot of time.

Also, this is a small thing, but if you haven't looked at it yet you should consider using the Cycles Rendering Engine. If you have more CPU and time to render, it really does produce nice lighting and effects, though it is more difficult to use.