Learning Analytics is a topic of growing interest among educational research community. As a result of a systematic literature review, this article describes the usefulness of Learning Analytics as a key element to support a proper 21st century education and to intervene its current crisis from the perspective of different educational stakeholders such as teachers, students, principals and family. From a 1384 document corpus, 100 of them were processed through an abstracting and in-depth reading and a further categorizing stage. Results showed that Learning Analytics provides important inputs for a well-informed decision making of educational stakeholders. Also, despite its importance and educational potential, current implementation of Learning Analytics should no longer be restricted to highly technical profiles but to be open to the academic community and the population in general. In that sense, it is proposed that the skills and knowledge related to Learning Analytics must be included in an updated version of “21st century information literacy”.

The present moment in the history of higher education requires setting strategies and specific action plans to guarantee a place in the highly competitive and demanding world scenario. The incorporation of information and communication technologies is one of the feasible paths to be considered, but this requires formulating proposals insuring appropriate use of said technologies seeking improvement of education quality. For this purpose, Universidad de La Sabana has developed an instructional design model based on learning objects.

ENSAYOS ResumenPara poder incorporar efectivamente los Objetos de Aprendizaje (OA) dentro de las prácticas y cultura de los docentes y estudiantes hay que primero comprenderlos y para ello es necesario realizar algunas reflexiones desde su dimensión teórica. Una aproximación a manera de ejercicio para acercarse crítica y reflexivamente a la comprensión de su complejidad 1 y su potencial como mediación del aprendizaje, supone enfrentar los retos del momento actual de la educación, la cual se presume inmersa en el fenómeno de la incorporación de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación.En este escrito se realiza una aproximación a la definición conceptual de los objetos de aprendizaje realzando lo que de suyo es identificable como aspectos de tipo pedagógico. AbstractIn order to make an effective implementation of Learning Objects within the practice and culture of teachers and students, it should be necessary, first, to understand and to make some reflections about its theoretical issues. An approach to the construction of the theoretical status of learning objects, or at least, to carry out the first steps towards it, is a valuable exercise to approach reflexively to the understanding of its complexity and its potential as a learning mediation, facing the challenges of today's education, which is presumed immersed in the phenomenon of integration of information and communication technologies.This writing is an approach to the conceptual definition of learning objects in order to enhance its pedagogical aspects.

The representation of knowledge is a process widely used in education for its potential to generate deep learning, metacognition, and also in mapping the student's cognitive structure while developing a broad spectrum of thinking skills. Notwithstanding the abovementioned benefits, the development and evolution of new digital ecologies of learning is still an unexplored field for knowledge representation systems. As part of a larger study, this article shows the process and results of a systematic review of literature on knowledge representation systems, with the purpose of identifying the foundations and main applicable instruments of digital educational environments. Among the most representative findings of this review is that despite the existence of a large number of educational experiences that have incorporated both physical and digital knowledge representation tools, their use has been restricted almost entirely to the understanding of concepts and the assessment of learning in non-collaborative environments. These findings suggest the relevance of studying the representation of knowledge in digital collaborative contexts that facilitate the development of thinking skills for the digital age, and the need for co-creation and transformation of knowledge. Together these suggest a new perspective on knowledge representation for digital ecologies of learning.

Open Educational Practices (OEP) have become a growing educational trend based on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which have been linked both from literature and practice with emerging and complex topics such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) and Open Educational Resources (OER). This essay presents a critical approach to Open Educational Practices regarding their conceptual framework and considering a current and rather than an excessive focus on free access to knowledge. We propose that transforming educational content, making it available, is not enough to produce educational innovation and consequently it becomes necessary to transform educational practices, turning them open. Although the transition from OER to OEP has already been considered in the literature, a new perspective beyond free access and costless is necessary to maximize the innovative potential of "openness".

Open Assessment of Learning (OAoL) is an emerging educational concept derived from the incorporation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to education and is related with the Open Education Movement. In order to improve understanding of OAoL a literature review was conducted as a meta-synthesis of 100 studies on ICT-based assessment published from 1995 to 2015, selected from well-established peer-reviewed databases. The purpose of this study focused on identifying the common topics between ICT-based assessment and OAoL which is considered as an Open Educational Practice.The review showed that extensive use of the Internet makes it easy to achieve some special features of OAoL as collaboration or sharing, which are considered negative or inconvenient in traditional assessment but at the same time become elements that promote innovation on that topic. It was also found that there is still a great resistance to accept change (as OAoL does) when structural elements of traditional assessment are questioned or challenged.

This article describes both the process and the results of an extensive literature review on <em>reusability</em> as one of the key factors for the creation of open content in the context of open and distance learning. Qualitative analysis of texts was made from 1992 to early 2014 in order to identify meanings associated with reusability and its evolution over time. Results show that reusability is not a univocal concept and its meaning has evolved from its early years, especially focusing over the last decade on adaptation processes. Furthermore, the review indicates that reusability has traveled through a complex path from a technological to an educational context and the ideas related to it, in each case, projected different practical implications. A more profound understanding of such ideas is critical to face institutional approaches to create and reuse open educational resources as well as the design and implementation of open educational practices.

While education is being increasingly permeated by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), the current school is considered outdated and hardly capable of responding to the challenges of our time. Home Education emerges as a growing alternative, especially in developing countries, where it is not yet properly regulated and developed. This article presents a qualitative multiple case study focused on exploring the use of ICT by 70 Colombian families who educate at home. Data analysis was conducted following Grounded Theory's steps from human, educational and technological dimensions. The results show that, within a context of constant social pressure, parents conceive ICT as mediators that allow them to access open support communities and resources, in order to develop their own guiding skills, enhance the development of their children's talents, mainly through gaming, collaboration, research and outdoor exploration. This becomes a lifestyle that ends up changing their relationships and family dynamics.