Adding 25 (student) users to Linux system (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) VM

Question

I would like to set up 25 student accounts on a Unbuntu 12.04 LTS VM that I have provisioned via Windows Azure for teaching purposes.

Can anyone point me toward some scripts that would automate this process and also offer some advice which command, newusers or adduser, would be preferable? I would like to set up home directories, basic passwords and the usual config/. files (from /etc/skel?). Students should have limited privileges (ie be regular users). I want to avoid them peeking into each others' accounts :-) [or mine], this implies no sudo either of course (which I assume it the default already for non-admin accounts).

If a script would be necessary, I would prefer writing the script in Python, though I can cobble together and run a bash script too.

Thanks, while I'm quite confident as a user, the admin side for more than myself is a bit new to me. I find the command choices a bit confusing for something that would be a regular admin task.