'Newbie' covers many experience levels - from afraid to turn the computer on to moving beyond Excel pivot table macros. People need different degrees of handholding.
Not necessarily my favorite, Coursera's Programming for Everybody [1] moves forward very very slowly. Great for some people, drying paint for others. It is taught in Python.
A course I think is great is Coursera's Introduction to Systematic Program Design [2] based on Felleisen's How to Design Programs introductory text. It is possible to register for the last session, from a year ago, and complete the work on your own. It is taught in Racket.
Another course that takes a learn-by-making approach is Coursera's Creative Programming for Digital Media & Mobile Apps [3]. It is beginner friendly and really encourages "getting into it". It is taught in Processing, and in some ways I think Processing is the ideal language for an introductory course in Software Engineering - it is pared down like Racket's student languages, provides just a pinch of Java pain, facilitates the production of really interesting output, and the environment provides a fast edit-compile-run loop.
For a person who is more oriented toward scientific or mathematical problems, Coursera's R Programming [4] might by a good fit.
Among the various Python Courses, I would probably go with Udacity's Design of Computer Programs: Programming Principles [5] because it is taught by Peter Norvig.
All that said, a book may be better than an open-enrollment class for many people, and there's a lot more variation.
[1] https://www.coursera.org/course/pythonlearn
[2] https://www.coursera.org/course/programdesign
[3] https://www.coursera.org/course/digitalmedia
[4] https://www.coursera.org/course/rprog
[5] https://www.udacity.com/course/cs212
