It is of vital importance to explore and understand future users' needs and requirements in the early phases of the product development process. However, in times of social distancing meeting users might not be possible. The project reported on in this paper has investigated the possibilities of conducting advanced user studies online. In total 30 small experimental studies have been conducted. Common digital tools that were used were e.g. Zoom, Teams, Mural, Miro, Snapchat, and Instagram.

The data was analyzed in a thematic content analysis by the authors on Mural. Identified challenges were excluding not tech-savvy user groups, missing out on interpersonal interaction and observations, as well as difficulties creating participant commitment and trust. On the positive side were perceived efficiency, a more levelled power distribution between participants, and ease of engagement and data retrieval for tech-savvy users.

Identified best practices included lowering social barriers through warm up activities and techniques to support open discussion during workshops. Furthermore, engagement could be supported through private social media groups, regular reminders, as well as clear communication of purpose and goal of the activities.

Discussion lists have gained a significant popularity in professional development research over the past few decades for the opportunity they provide for asynchronous interaction. This article presents findings from a small-scale case study that aimed at exploring the nature of teachers’ asynchronous exchanges in a discussion list. The data comprised the archived log of the messages in a Yahoo Group discussion list by five in-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers who volunteered to take part in a hybrid computer-assisted language learning (CALL) teacher education course in a state university in Iran. The discussion list was incorporated into the course to engage participants in professional dialogue on topics related to technology/CALL. During the initial data analysis, participants’ asynchronous exchanges were grouped as suggestions, questions, unclassified, answers, and delivery, drawing upon Oriogun and Cave’s (2008) SQUAD categorization, following the constant comparative method of analysis. Through a follow-up computer-mediated discourse analysis, cognitive, social, and teaching presence functional moves were identified in the data. Participants used the space not only for socializing and peer instruction but also for constructing knowledge. Despite an uneven pattern of contribution, asynchronous exchanges provided opportunities for knowledge construction at different levels of cognitive presence on topics ranging from technology tools and their affordances/constraints to computer-assisted language testing, materials development, and classroom management. The findings provide CALL teacher education researchers and course designers insights into the potential of asynchronous interaction for online and blended language teacher education.

This study concerns the development of autonomy in adult learners working on an online learning platform as part of a professional master's degree programme in “French as a Foreign Language”. Our goal was to identify the influence of reflective and collaborative dimensions on the construction of autonomy for online learners in this programme. The material used was 27 self-analysis papers in response to an assignment which asked students to review their distance learning experience (reflective dimension) and to highlight the role of others, if any, in their learning (collaborative dimension). In addition to these two major points, the analysis by category of the body of results shows principally that in qualitative terms, the factors of autonomisation for online learning are interconnected and include: the difficulties related to distance learning and the strategies that learners develop to face those difficulties, the importance of interpersonal relationships in social and emotional terms in overcoming those difficulties, the specific modes of sociability developed for distance learning and the related development of a new type of autonomy that is both individual and collective. The discussion examines the creation, over the course of time, of a new “distance learning culture” that is nonetheless never easy to create and share.