Hi James,
As far as, "they want students to learn about editing software!," Good for them as it is lots of fun! I used to do that with the students I taught. Early on, I decided not to start them out with commercial software because in making my own videos at home, I had quickly learned, the company's that produced the software came out with new versions seemingly on a yearly basis. In my middle school lab I could not afford one copy, let alone 16 copies. (Years later with some grant money, I did buy some commercial editing software, that quickly became outdated with no money to upgrade.)
What I decided to do, was to start them out with, Windows Movie Maker. I had a tutorial in a Moodle Book, that lead them all through creating the same simple video, that I could watch and grade very quickly. The video they had to make, contained most items, techniques, and vocabulary they would need to make their own simple videos. Using Windows Movie Maker also meant that most of them could make movies at home. I gave bonus points for those who did. Only Apple users had to come up with some other program at home. I also included a couple of other tutorials for further practice.
Unfortunately, Windows Movie Maker is no longer available for download from MS, and in fact, they give the following warning: Windows Movie Maker, part of Windows Essentials 2012, is no longer available for download. Websites that offer free downloads of Movie Maker are not offering the real thing, and those downloads may contain malware, viruses, or hidden costs.
They go on to say: You may want to consider upgrading to Windows 10. The latest version of the Photos app includes the ability to create and edit videos with music, text, motion, filters, and 3D effects.
Just now is the first time I ever looked at the MS Photos app. First time in, it automatically made a sample music video, Lots of Smiles, from some of the photos I have on my computer where seemingly, it picked photos to use that all had someone smiling, in the picture. Just offhand, it looks like it has even more capability than the old Windows Movie Maker, and would probably be available to a large number of students, simply due to having a computer using MS Windows. Probably most any device students have, will probably have some sort of simple video editor. Just need to develop a lesson for the most common OS's showing them how to use and then upload to some sort of Moodle activity.
Sorry for being long winded.