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The Federal Government has begun distributing tablets to teachers in public schools in Brazil. However, no preparation was provided to guide professionals on how to use them for pedagogical purposes. As a result, teachers have been carrying tablets around or leaving them alone on their classroom tables. Considering this situation, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the possibility of adopting a ternary conception of formation processes – the self-hetero-eco formation process – to help teachers learn how to use tablets for educational purposes; and on the potential of such a process to congregated teachers in the joint creation and maintenance of a Didactic Digital Material/App Data Bank.

Theoretically, this paper is grounded on complexity principles (Morin, 2008, 2010), and especially on the studies made by Moraes (2007), Freire (2009) and Freire and Leffa (2013).

The movement of perceiving each teacher as responsible for his/her formation (personalization), interacting with others to expand possibilities, co-constructing knowledge to reach co-formation (socialization), and interacting with the environment with/from which s/he learns (ecoligization) will reveal the self-hetero-eco technological formation process which may help teachers create steady links amongst themselves at school and resolve many difficult situations such as the need to overcome the lack of technological skills to use tablets. Besides that, the idea of joining teachers together and jointly creating and maintaining a Didactic Digital Material/App Data Bank may not only impact on the use of the tablet itself but also on interpersonal relationships, intensifying respect, companionship and friendship, among other important ties that help bind people together.

This paper presents an innovative formation concept which is not based on time development, but which is based on the agents involved in the process and in the environment where the formation takes place. This concept is based on complexity and seems to be more attuned to the features of the contemporary world.

This article aims at presenting a conceptual framework which, theoretically grounded on complexity, provides the basis to conceive of online language courses that intend to respond to the needs of students and society.

This paper is introduced by reflections on distance education and on the paradigmatic view underlying a large component of language courses in Brazil. From these considerations, it is reasoned that the complex paradigm offers a foundation to conceive a unique design concept. The complex educational design is then described in its constructs and features. To conclude, reflections and implications of this original, conceptual model are taken into account.

An online language course design – although aiming at schematizing a series of learning situations and defining target teaching contents – needs to contemplate unpredictability and instability which prevent it from having a pre‐established fixed design. Instead, it should be based on an open syllabus, structured according to learning situations that, suggested/selected by students, respond to their interests, and through which linguistic items will be introduced and discussed.

This paper presents a conceptual framework which, theoretically grounded on complexity, provides the basis to conceive of online language courses that are responsive to the needs of students and society. While the complex paradigm is emerging and winning followers and complex thinkers over, we have the continuing education segment to open up trial areas and spread out the paradigmatic novelty. The conceptual framework presented and theoretically articulated is now open to be operationalized and interpreted in its potentiality.