Identifying tools to support schools' collaborative teaching and learning

Integration of e-Science and Grid technologies into curriculum teaching is currently an ambitious aim for teachers and school infrastructures to organise. However, it can expose classroom learners and teachers to a wider community of specialists and interested others, enriching the classroom experience beyond the knowledge of the local teacher. This paper reflects on two practical e-Science projects that utilised mobile hand-held technologies to bring the concepts of collaborative e-Science and the Grid to young scientists. Students engaged in hands-on exploration of their surroundings, and were able to communicate with pollution specialists and with a remote classroom of children who had used similar sensors. Communication and data sharing activities in these sessions exposed a requirement for a suite of tools and technologies not currently accessible to schools. From qualitative analysis of data across these two projects, we present a collection of supporting tools to help achieve this aim and future research direction.