The OpenLang Network Platform: Using Moodle to Build a European Community of Language Learners and Teachers
2020-11-28, 12:20–12:40 (Europe/Athens), Room 1

In this session, we will present the OpenLang Network platform, an open and collaborative Moodle-based environment for networking between language learners and teachers across Europe. The OpenLang Network platform brings together educators wanting to discover and share open language learning resources, as well as Erasmus+ mobility participants that wish to improve their language skills and cultural knowledge. This initiative is funded by the Erasmus+ programme and aims at raising language awareness of mobility European languages, as well as fostering the Open Education European multicultural and multilingual vision via Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). You can access and join the OpenLang Network platform at: https://openlang-network.kmi.open.ac.uk/.


This session will be co-hosted by Alexander Mikroyannidis (The Open University, UK), Maria Perifanou (University of Macedonia, Greece) and Anastasios Economides (University of Macedonia, Greece).

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Dr. Maria Perifanou is an adjunct lecturer at the Faculty of Italian Language & Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, an adjunct academic staff at Hellenic Open University, TESOL Master's Programme, and a senior researcher at the Smart and Mobile Learning Environments (SMILE) Lab of the University of Macedonia (GR) in the field of CALL and TEL. She holds a Master's degree in ICT and Foreign Language Education from Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice, (IT), and a Ph.D. from the University of Athens, (GR), in the field of Applied Linguistics. Over the last ten years, she has collaborated with various European research institutions on more than 35 EU projects in the field of Technology-Enhanced Learning, notably LangMOOC, OPENLangNetwork, DC4LT, PASTILLE, FeSTEM, and CARAT. Furthermore, she worked for 3 years as a TEL consultant and project coordinator at the Open Education Europa portal for the Commission's Directorate-General for Education and Culture (DG EAC). She is the author of over 60 articles that have been published in peer-reviewed journals, conferences, and books. She is also a member of different European TEL research networks and communities and has also been awarded several international and national scholarships and fellowships for her research.

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Dr. Alexander Mikroyannidis is a Research Fellow in the Knowledge Media Institute of The Open University. He holds a Ph.D. in Informatics from Manchester Business School, an M.Phil. in Computation from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), and a B.Eng. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Patras, Greece. He has more than 10 years of research experience in the field of Technology-Enhanced Learning and specifically in personalised learning, self-regulated learning, lifelong learning, open educational resources and rich interactive learning materials, as well as applications of blockchain technology in education. He is the author of over 100 articles that have been published in peer-reviewed journals, conferences and books. He has been awarded and worked on a wide range of European and nationally funded research projects, notably QualiChain, DEL4ALL, OpenLang Network, Open Networking Lab, Institute of Coding, SlideWiki, EDSA, HUB4NGI, FORGE, weSPOT, EUCLID, ROLE, OpenScout, CASPAR, and PARMENIDES.

Professor Anastasios A. Economides is the Director of SMILE (Smart & Mobile Interactive Learning Environments, http://smile.uom.gr) lab at the University of Macedonia (UoM, http://www.uom.gr), Thessaloniki, Greece. He has a M.Sc. (1987) and a Ph.D. (1990) degree in Computer Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. His research interests include mobile, adaptive, personalized, collaborative learning & assessment, as well as user experience & acceptance of smart IoT systems & services. He has published two (2) books, more than one hundred (100+) peer-reviewed journal papers, one hundred fifty (150+) peer-reviewed conference papers, and twenty (20+) peer-reviewed chapter books. He has received over 6000 citations, h-index = 41, i10-index = 115, (2020): https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1AAOD6YAAAAJ&hl=en