Hi Roger and all,
I agree with Vesa that this was an impressive undertaking to do and having a local ambassador/expert/enthusiast/spark in the room is VERY desirable.
In our hemisphere WMO regions III and IV covering North, Central, and South America and Caribbean, we have been holding monthly Regional Focus Group Sessions for 10 years now. As I think about it, the primary way we introduce people to the online sessions is through an in-class session or some other in-person recommendation. If it is in a class, that facilitator adds their own comments like - every month we get an update on what is happening with the indices for El Nino, sea surface temperatures and anomalies, the dominating upper level synoptic patterns, and we often highlight imagery from an interesting recent case... People from the class go home and participate in sessions, pick up something interesting and share it with colleagues. That is an ideal to strive for - that local "spark" in the office. So continue to encourage all participants to share helpful "tips" with colleagues and do not be afraid to ask about something that is not clear. Remind them that not everyone thinks or sees things in the same way.
On the facilitator side, if I know someone is new, I can say to the presenter - can you refresh our memories on how that indice works because we have a few new people with us. Often I hear new things that make me think about a feature from a different perspective.
We haven't focused on the remote classroom exercise, but I will think about it some more, particularly with exercises on how to use GOES-R. I had missed the ppt when I looked at the post yesterday, and as I looked at the ppt today, my first thought was that this course was for the intern. Is that correct? Not knowing much about what else you presented or what else was presented in the course, I had to make a few assumptions: Material was presented in your session or prior to your session on what was important to identify large hail, damaging wind, heavy precipitation, and tornadoes. It seems like having them fill out the form was more a matter of what they remember from the presentation (if they are an intern) or what they remember from experience (repeated use of the indicators and more likely if they are an expert). Another way to approach an exercise would be to provide an information sheet like you show in slide 3 and assign a different (short) case to each person. Have them circle the relevant indicators and write in values and then present each case. Then you can show the answer of if there was a hazard or not. -Of course, that is more work for the organizer, but the participants see more examples and get a quick introduction to variability.
So as I typed this, I have a few ideas as to how to do some online exercises. The information sheet is not a new idea. Sometimes we are asked to provide a list of important points to either print out or have in a file for easy access and reference.
Regards,
Bernie