I could be mistaken, but I don't believe this is going to happen. The main reason is the fact that it goes completely against the whole idea behind the REST API/HTML conventions. It's there to separate the most basic functionalities into easy to understand, logical commands. Doing it the way you suggest is completely counter-intuitive.
Let's say you'd like to send someone a letter (those old school paper things). I have a feeling you'd POST the letter, rather than GET the letter. POST is there to send info, GET there to, well, get info.
That said, I completely understand your arguments, and agree with you that it would be easier. It would however not be better. And if you're starting off by teaching kids to use hacks, rather than proper coding, you'll eventually run into problems (or rather, they will).
I still consider myself a "kid" at 19 without a lot of programming experience, and have to say I never got the whole CURL thing working. I've tried, it gave me some errors, and I rage-quit. That's not to say I quit working with the Spark. I found it to be a good lesson to get the stuff working with JavaScript, since that's what half of the web is running on, as well as all things Node.js. Since this is an IoT device, I'd like to read out my stuff over the web, meaning a web page. Personally I'd rather struggle for 5 days straight to get it working with "good" code, than to hack it together just to have something working. "Bad habits die hard" is a real pain when it comes to programming.
Back to the
That can still be true, while using the proper techniques. I personally wouldn't bother with explaining all the URL calling stuff either, depending on how much time you have. Why not make a universal interface in which the account owner could log in, which exposes all functions/variables? This will allow you to do pretty much anything, without having to mess with the web code (yet). Some people already made something like this, and were kind enough to share it. I've personally used this one a lot, and still do:
I gave it a shot as well, mainly for trying the SparkJS library.
When you progress through the course, you could slowly start to introduce the principles behind this, and start working towards web code. This way, the kids will still be able to program their code, without having to worry about the web side of things, while making sure that they're not starting some bad habits.
This is not, in any way, meant as criticism. I'm merely trying to explain why I wouldn't do it that way, and provide alternatives.
I hope some of this was useful, but feel free to ask for help/clarification if you require any.