Hi Bernadette,
I am happy to see that you found time to reply to our questions and share your experience. Even if there are some other things planned for WEEK 2, they are just a continuation of what we started last week, thus I encourage everybody to post comments to this forum.
I would like to highlight some useful hints you give us.
Some like that the sessions are bi-lingual because as the information is being translated, it gives you time to contemplate what has been said.
We started to talk about the time experience in a synchronous session, sounds very philosophical :), and that we as moderators or presenters get impatient because there is no feedback from the audience for one minute or so. We would not feel it in a classroom perhaps. We talked about using timer to give the virtual classroom a clear pace. Then you add to it the language skills that could be an issue in a synchronous session, so it is worth to give more time for reflection to non-native speakers. As far as time is concern, I would add to it my impression that keeping the schedule and planning a duration of virtual event carefully is even more important than in an on-site event. What do you think could be an optimal time for an online synchronous activity? Probably there is no one universal pattern but maybe we are able to set some frames?
You mention how you engage your audience by asking them to draw or give comments. I am curious to know if they rather use a microphone to answer? Or chat? Other tools?
Then another important issue you notice is a poor bandwidth and how to deal with it. In the system we use there is a possibility to select an audio codec decreasing the audio quality, but making the session more friendly for users with a slow Internet connection. What else can you do to be prepared for attendees with poor bandwidth? If you have some tips, you can post them here or directly to the "Emergency Checklist" wiki:
https://classroom.eumetsat.int/mod/lti/view.php?id=4431
Maja