Personally as a web developer, I think HTML5 is pretty awesome. It has a bunch of cool features. One of the biggest drawbacks is the ability to write invalid html (opening tags, with no closing tags, etc), but HAML solves all the problems I have with it. So I think anyone who is considering web development or wanting to be more technical learns HTML5 first, then afterward get some experience with HAML. To give people some experience with HTML5, I built a free online video course that will teach people how to build an awesome splash page in a single hour: http://www.thefirehoseproject.com/lessons/splash-page