Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The dropout rate, the failure of university students, appears to be a universal problem that concerns teachers, institutions, governments and international organizations. Dropout rates, when related to teaching and learning through digital systems (distance education), are even higher than in face-to-face formats. The goals of this work focus, firstly, on selecting the most outstanding causes that weaken the pedagogical dialogue (mediated educational dialogue) and, consequently, increase dropout rates, and secondly, on pointing out support and guidance actions that could promote quality pedagogical dialogues leading to success, higher satisfaction rates and, consequently, retention, persistence and academic commitment and, thus, reducing the number of student failures. We proceed to the study through a review of the most outstanding scientific literature to detect the main reasons that motivate distance students to drop out from their studies and a number of institutional and teaching actions that can help reduce those failure rates. The focus here is on the proposal of Mediated Educational Dialogue (García Aretio, 2014). When a student's dialogue with the institution, teachers, peers and resources breaks down, a feeling of discouragement, anxiety and frustration appears which, if not addressed, leads to dropout.

When carrying out spoken interaction tasks, whether face-to-face or online, learners face considerable communicative challenges which prod them into responding strategically. This article compares the use of communicative strategies as two pairs of students of French and two pairs of students of German as additional languages carry out eight in face-to-face and online spoken interaction tasks, the latter via videoconferencing, in order to examine the possible influence of modality, task typology, and language on communicative strategies used. Jigsaw and ranking tasks were recorded and transcribed using the CLAN programme, while the methodological approach applied was qualitative. Our data show that the jigsaw task elicited mostly the use of communication strategies with a view to clarification, while the ranking task tended toward strategies involving discourse reformulation. Furthermore, there appeared slight differences between students of French and students of German when resorting to compensatory strategies (searching, asking for help, code-switching). In all cases strategies were employed articulately forming complex communicative sequences. Thus, the results of our study indicate – with the exception of iconic gesturing utilised in mime strategy – modality does not significantly impact on the use of strategies. Nevertheless, both task typology and the particular language being learned may have an effect on strategies utilised. 

Digital games integrated into pedagogical practice can result in a more engaging, contextualized and active learning. However, it is essential to offer education for the teachers ensuring contributions to the teaching and learning process. Therefore, an e-learning course on digital games directed to teachers was analyzed to evaluate if the education process favored the effective integration of digital games in school contexts. The study is characterized as a field survey with quantitative and qualitative approach accomplished with undergraduates after one year of the conclusion of the course. The results revealed that factors such as time spent playing and time experience did not indicate a significant effect on the scores related to pedagogical practices, and only the educational level could be associated to the scores of pedagogical practices with games after the course. It was observed the increase in the frequency that teachers use digital games in their pedagogical practices and a significant difference among the practices performed by teachers before and after the course. The conclusion is that there is strong evidence that the educational process caused changes in pedagogical practices, reinforcing the importance of policies and investments in teacher professional development.

In recent years, a growing number of countries have introduced computational thinking into the curriculum of compulsory education. In this text, firstly, we briefly analyze some of the problems generated by the absence of a consensus definition of computational thinking and a conceptual framework that guides its integration in the curriculum of the various stages, the relationship with other disciplines and with the digital competence, its evaluation, teacher training, etc. Secondly, some elements of the process followed in Spain to promote its inclusion in the curriculum are described, an example of "fast policy" similar to that of other countries, characterized by temporary compression and the indiscernible fusion of public and private interests. Finally, it is suggested that the discourse on computational thinking in education avoids the debate about how it contributes to the ends of compulsory education and about its previous assumptions and its political and economic implications.

The main goal of this special issue of RIED is trying to contribute to promoting critical transformation processes in the field of Educational Technology through a collection of nine articles that manage to make, at the same time, a state of the art and an analysis of some of the debates that have gained strength in the field in recent times. This introduction is not intended to summarize these articles, but to offer an overview and, at the same time, to propose a dialogue that includes the points of view expressed in these articles, other perspectives that have surely been insinuated to us in research and even others that seem latent in our praxis. Specifically, with an intention of proposition, seven pending conversations are succinctly considered, that refer to: 1) Understanding educational processes with technology and technologies to understand educational processes; 2) Making educational decisions with technology; 3) Digital agency; 4) The nature of educational institutions in times of technology; 5) Enriching the role of participants in institutions with technologies; 6) Defining educational technology; and, finally, 7) Investigating educational technology.

The incorporation of Information, Communication and Technologies in the field of education has allowed for great changes in both teaching and learning. This incorporation has led to the generation of new scenarios in which these processes are developed. Ubiquitous education arises from the evolution of Information Technology and its incorporation into the teaching-learning processes, seeking to bring learning closer to the learners, thus achieving a context-based education. This paper is a state of the art presentation of the identification of four main aspects that must be taken into account, for the adequate inclusion of ubiquitous education in a training process. The four aspects identified here are: areas of knowledge in which it can be applied, educational levels in which it can be implemented, information technologies that facilitate the implementation of digital resources to carry out this type of learning, and learning models that intervene in ubiquitous learning These aspects are covered from the perspective of authors who have worked on them, providing a perspective of the aspects that should be considered for an adequate incorporation of ubiquitous education in an appropriate context. Finally, a generalized context of what has been presented and the conclusions obtained from its development are presented through a mental map.

Having completed the first 30 years of RIED, Revista Iberoamericana de Educación a Distancia, we analyze the publishing activity of the journal, its contents and trajectory in hindsight following bibliometric and thematic analyses. As a result of the bibliometric analysis we obtain general results on the journal in its 30 years of life: main authors, countries, periods, types of studies carried out and most cited articles. In turn, with the thematic analysis we get to know the main issues tackled throughout the last 20 years. It is also possible to understand the evolution and maturation of the journal as a means of scientific research and educational theories dissemination in the field of distance education (DE). In our different journal articles it can be observed the evolution of theories and experiences in discussions and investigations, and the transition from distance to digital education can be visualized. 

The scientific collaboration and the management of the academic identity play an important role in the academic productivity, as some studies have already reported. With the emergence of social networking sites, those possibilities have been increased and the presence in the academic activity is not always a must. Several studies have dealt with those topics but it does not exist yet a literature systematization that helps researchers in identifying possible working perspectives in this field and shows the advantages and disadvantages of alternative online ways of collaboration and development of the academic identity. The current study aims at addressing this gap by providing a qualitative meta-synthesis of works centered on the use of academic and general (topic not specified) social networking sites with purposes of scientific collaboration and taking care of the academic digital identity by academic researchers. The searches were conducted in five international databases of relevance in the education field. In addition, some references from primary studies were incorporated. This process brought to the final identification of 68 studies between 2008 and 2018, whose findings are synthesized in the results according to a division of categories. In the conclusion the lack of studies with a critical vision and deep analysis of the academic practices in social networking tools is highlighted and the results are discussed along with lines of future research related to the identified dimensions: networking, knowledge exchange and digital identity.

In the context of current globalization, universities face demands for internationalization that involve providing students training oriented to the development of professional skills, among which the acquisition of a second language has a central importance. In the last few years, the University of Santiago de Chile has implemented a program of English Blended Learning in arcareers of eight faculties, whose objective is to develop linguistic and communicative skills at an intermediate level. For this purpose, the program consists of three pedagogical components: classrooms lessons, tutoring and an on-line platform. At the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, a process evaluation was carried out that sought to know, from the perspective of those immediately involved, how the program had been implemented, emphasizing the progress towards the fulfillment of its objectives. The data collection considered three techniques: a survey about the learning experience of the students (N = 780), a focus group with the teachers of the program and semi-structured interviews with coordinators or heads of the University. The main findings show a positive evaluation of the program when each component is observed by itself. However, the analysis of the integration between these reveals four critical tensions related to: the guidance on autonomous work, the managing of the assignment of tutorials, the transition from the pedagogical contents of the platform to the class and the functional differentiation between the components of the program.

Twitter is a social network where users interact in a common digital space, forming connections that, in themselves, configure, in turn, their own interaction networks based on the exchange of content. This paper has addressed this issue around the impact that active methodologies have on Twitter. For this, we carried out an investigation where the technique of social network analysis was used, both in the analysis of the type of message as well as its graphic representation. The active methodologies analyzed have been project-based learning (PBL), the Flipped Classroom and gamification through the corresponding hashtags, tweets and retweets. The results have allowed us to know the degree of repercussion and analysis of the relationships that have been established between the different Twitter users about active methodologies, as well as to check which of them has greater relevance, and who is behind this interest in the active methodologies. It is concluded that, when a user adopts a leading role by retweeting other account tweets, it favors that the tweets and retweets themselves are more visible and, in turn, more retweeted. Regarding the network structures that are configured for each active methodology, we can say that they do not follow a single model, although all of them conform to the classification proposed by Himelboim, Smith, Rainie, Shneiderman and Espina (2017).