[This article was published in French, translated in English by EPALE France].

Lockdown has disrupted research and collaboration practices, forcing partners to work almost exclusively at a distance and to postpone the interventions, meetings and events that are an essential part of their projects. It has become an e-confinement, mainly conducted via screens, and while digital technology is a tool that has been used by trainers and researchers for some time now, both in universities and in associations, its forced use for all activities raises some questions, especially when trying to envisage a new normality, one which leaves aside the superfluous and incoherent in favour of meaning and cohesion.

Project leaders have found themselves having to move online in their routines and tasks which were planned to be carried out face-to-face. While administrative work packages have not been heavily disrupted, practical work packages have created unprecedented situations. This has required people to appropriate new tools, or even to create new content or modify existing content. This adjustment has resulted in an additional workload or the need to acquire new skills without prior training. Faced with the abundance of online solutions on offer, digital fatigue from answering messages, sorting relevant resources, or using time-consuming applications has affected many. 

In the fields of media and information literacy and digital literacy, the experiments conducted by Savoir*Devenir have shed light on the transition to the digital world, particularly for projects involving the collaborative and cross-cultural creation of serious games, the use of computer tools such as the InVID-WeVERIFY plug-in in the form of research and intervention or training courses transformed into virtual classrooms (savoirdevenir.net/projects). These cover "sensitive" issues such as misinformation on social media or the fight against online hate, without forgetting the promise of deliverables tested and evaluated in the field. These experiences have made it possible to measure the three dimensions of e-presence: social e-presence, which focuses on sociability, cognitive e-presence, which focuses on reflexivity, and designated e-presence, which focuses on the opportunities and constraints of online solutions.

In terms of sociability, the e-lockdown has brought together international partners in a cross-cultural virtual community. The partners' ability to project themselves with empathy through the means of communication used (often a videoconferencing platform such as Zoom, Meets, Lifesize or Jit.si) has revealed that some personalities are more capable than others of conveying verbal and visual interactions. Backgrounds have been used to project images showing personal decor (library, living room) or cultural decor (the seaside, a national monument, etc.).  Interpersonal skills have also played a major role and certain personalities with the temperament of mediators have been able to create links by choosing user-friendly collaborative platforms and bringing them to life through forums, chats, live and recorded webinars on YouTube, Facebook and other platforms to create opportunities for sharing and proximity. Other personalities have proved more difficult to manage, with some colleagues invading others with worried or threatening messages and emails, which are more difficult to block online than in person. The value of cultural visits, meals in local restaurants and coffee breaks has been recognised; unofficial moments where friendships are forged, trust is built, new projects are imagined, and hierarchies are forgotten.

In terms of reflexivity, the e-lockdown has raised the acute question of learning to learn and learning to be informed, while some projects have been transformed into virtual classrooms, or even MOOCs. The shift from face-to-face to distance learning has forced the establishment of online strategies and programmes, aimed at promoting all possible forms of commitment and motivation. In order to call on the participants' ability to construct meaning and appropriate content, personal and private experiences became more important than ever. Offering workshops to help understand the online misinformation about Covid-19 in certain countries helped to calm some anxieties. Serious games that incorporated missions based on the various hate messages during lockdown alleviated some concerns, creating empowerment in an otherwise incapacitating situation.  It has also been (re-)discovered that education and training can be positive frustrations, if they are rooted in situations that help to make sense of the participants' feelings. This brings about active approaches based on collaborative, multi-actor and cross-cultural projects - a characteristic of the ERASMUS programme - with a real social utility.   

In terms of the opportunities and constraints of digital design, the e-lockdown has demonstrated the performance of digital solutions, particularly those for online collaboration, which have made it possible to carry out entire sections of projects. It brought the relief of having alternative meeting options, which allowed for continuity in coordination, even if delays and postponements were necessary (with a maximum limit of six months). However, these commercial platforms are not neutral; they have their own authority and modes of control and do not always meet educational expectations or legal standards: their ability to share information does not prevent them from collecting personal data. Not all of them are GDPR-compatible, although some of them have very quickly understood the interest of guaranteeing the privacy of their European users, especially when minors are concerned. We have discovered the power of the imaginary, which is transposed online, with features that reflect our models of authority (the "raise your hand" symbol), our social and cognitive scripts (the mosaic of faces and the hidden camera) and all the kinds of masks we use, both face-to-face and remotely, which our technology reproduces while pushing for "transparency".  

What new normality should be envisaged?

Paradoxically, this state of affairs raises the question of offline contact in the event further pandemics and global crises. What should be retained, and what can be forgotten? 

While digital technology has made it possible to continue many projects and has proven its performance, the programming of European projects has suffered from the absence of missions abroad by teacher-researchers. This has had an impact on the planning of European projects, as direct contact helps to develop projects. It was discovered that the health crisis and the constraints linked to the lockdown place future project leaders in a context that does not encourage them to think of new projects (the university is in an emergency situation and is finding it difficult to project itself in a post-crisis situation that is still uncertain). Whilst avoiding frequent and environmentally damaging intermediate travel, rituals are undoubtedly to be maintained in European projects, in order to promote interpersonal and cross-cultural interest, and to break down barriers.

The emergence of solidarity between the members of affected projects has helped us through successive lockdowns, but the issue of access (to the Internet, computers and tablets, platforms and applications, etc.) is still a factor of inequality in Europe and around the Mediterranean. There is the question of a public digital service for public universities, with open source solutions such as Moodle or Jit-si, which are not designed for commercial use and are accessible to a large number of people. The absence or weakness of European digital solutions highlights the lack of European sovereignty over critical resources such as training platforms, search engines and social media. European authorities must provide widespread and concerted support for coordination and training models that make us less dependent on artificial intelligence concocted by platforms from countries with little respect for privacy and data protection.

While it has become apparent that we cannot do without the social and technological aspects that connect us, the current situation creates tensions between human and technical interfaces rather than between presence and distance.  For a successful balance that blends presence and distance, that meets crucial ecological expectations and proven digital emergencies, online activities must not be simple copies of offline ones.  Their distribution must be reworked, within the calls for projects themselves. This means looking at the new skills and literacies needed to give teams control over the systems, to develop true resilience and to create an appetite for alternative approaches.

Much of this work revolves around information culture, more than digital technology and its management. What we have really learnt from screens and platforms is that a mastery of information in all its forms and formats - media, documents and data - is essential to living in a digital world that is chosen and not suffered. This implies improving Media and Information Literacy in programmes and projects. It implies supporting project leaders in their navigation of information culture (perhaps in the form of a short vade mecum), so that they feel able to handle the three dimensions of e-presence.  Capitalizing on current own experiences and on peer validation circuits could lead to sharing new initiatives to help us move forward.