EdTech blog by Alexander Mikroyannidis

Erasmus Days 2020: Three days of celebration of the Erasmus+ Programme

By Alexander Mikroyannidis23 October 2020Technology-Enhanced Learning

October 15, 16 & 17, 2020 marked three days of celebration of the Erasmus+ Programme in Europe and beyond. Erasmus Days are a unique opportunity to organise an event, share Erasmus experiences and spread the word about Erasmus projects. For those that want to study or train abroad, Erasmus Days offer three dedicated days to learn about the Erasmus+ Programme, talk with the programme’s alumni and network via exhibitions, concerts, contests, seminars, partner networking, open days, distribution of Europass Mobility documents, digital events, and more.

In 2020, a total of 5,024 events were organised across Europe during Erasmus Days. The OpenLang Network project participated with several events organised by the project partners, both individually and jointly. On October 16, all project partners organised a webinar to disseminate the project and its outputs. Alexander Mikroyannidis (The Open University, UK) presented the OpenLang Network platform, an open and collaborative online environment for networking between language learners and teachers across Europe.

The OpenLang Network project is building a network among all Erasmus+ KA1 Mobility Participants within an open and highly interactive online environment for supporting more efficiently their efforts to develop their language skills of the target mobility EU languages. Alexander Mikroyannidis is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Open University, in charge of the project’s online platform. This is a key output for the project as a whole, as it offers the technological foundations for the success and sustainability of the project’s language learning network.

Watch the recording of the webinar here:

Professional biography

Dr. Alexander Mikroyannidis is a Senior Research Fellow (Associate Professor) in the Knowledge Media Institute of The Open University, UK. 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.

Research interests

The research expertise of Dr. Mikroyannidis is in the field of Technology-Enhanced Learning. He has been investigating the use of novel educational technologies for enhancing personalised learning, self-regulated learning, lifelong learning, as well as open education. He is currently working on the transformative applications of Generative AI and decentralisation blockchain technology in the context of distance and higher education. He is the author of over 120 peer-reviewed publications that have received over 1,500 citations.

Teaching interests

Dr. Mikroyannidis has extensive experience in developing rich interactive learning materials for Open Educational Resources (OERs), Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), Badged Open Courses (BOCs), and eBooks. Some highlights from this work are the following:

Impact and engagement

The work of Dr. Mikroyannidis has led to strategic partnerships with key technological companies, most notably with Cisco and its global educational network, the Cisco Networking Academy, which has over 1 million students worldwide. Within this partnership, Dr. Mikroyannidis is in charge of the design, development and deployment of PT Anywhere, a novel educational tool for teaching computer networking skills by performing network simulations on any device. PT Anywhere has played a vital role in remote teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has been featured in the UK government’s Digital Skills Toolkit, which is offering essential digital skills to job seekers.

Dr. Mikroyannidis has recently led a successful pilot for facilitating lifelong learning using blockchain technologies, in the context of the European project QualiChain. In particular, he has been in charge of deploying and evaluating decentralised education and employment qualifications with learners and educators within various lifelong learning contexts. The results of this pilot have provided valuable insights into the different aspects of lifelong learning that require support, as well as into the guidance and training needs of the education community related to the use of decentralisation technologies. More recently, Dr. Mikroyannidis has been investigating the impact of Web 3.0 and Blockchain on open education, aiming to reduce barriers for the open upskilling and reskilling of job seekers. For more info, see this journal editorial co-authored with several other renowned experts in the field of open education.

External collaborations

Dr. Mikroyannidis has been driving significant educational technology initiatives at an international level, by establishing a network of collaborators inside and outside the Open University and acquiring external funding, in order to implement and evaluate novel educational solutions in real-life settings and with real users. He has been awarded and worked on a wide range of European and nationally funded research projects, including QualiChain, DEL4ALL, OpenLang Network, Open Networking Lab, Institute of Coding, SlideWiki, EDSA, HUB4NGI, FORGE, weSPOT, EUCLID, ROLE, OpenScout, CASPAR, and PARMENIDES.

In collaboration with the European partners of the Erasmus+ project OpenLang Network, Dr. Mikroyannidis has led the design, implementation and evaluation of the OpenLang Network platform. This platform provides an open and collaborative online learning environment that brings together language teachers and learners across Europe. This journal article presents the sustainable design of the platform and the tools that the platform is offering for practicing innovative learning methods, such as tandem language learning. The goal of this work is to foster the European multicultural and multilingual vision by building a sustainable online community around open educational resources and practices.