2020-11-28, 12:00–12:20 (Europe/Athens), Room 1
In this session, we will present the LangMOOC platform (http://study.langmooc.com/), an open language learning Moodle-based environment which offers openly accessible language courses in 5 languages (Greek, English, Italian, German, and Norwegian). The LangMOOC is a project co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ KA2: Strategic partnership programme and its focus is to provide support for language learning and promote multilingualism via the implementation of Massive Open Online Courses for Language Learning. The main aim of the project is to research the potential of MOOCs in Language Learning, to explore the pedagogical framework of Language MOOCs, to develop a toolkit for the creation and management of Language MOOCs and Open Educational Resources (OERs) and to test the use of OERs in language MOOCs. Moodle platform was chosen for the language MOOCs by the consortium after thorough research of different providers of MOOC platforms. The main criteria for selecting Moodle were openness (open source LMS) and customizability.
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.
George is Chief Executive of Active Citizens Partnership (activecitizens.eu). He has a bachelor’s degree in informatics and a Master’s Degree in Distance Learning. Has long experience of working with European funded and transnational projects. He is specialised in research and development into digital pedagogies and technology enhanced learning, the recognition of informal learning, the training of teachers and trainers and development of open source software for education and Open Educational Resources. He has designed and implemented more than 30 research projects last 10 years. Last 3 years he is working on different projects on Artificial Intelligence and its role in adult, VET and School education all over Europe.