Designing and Supporting Collaborative Activities

Collaborative Learning techniques could achieve a high impact on education if good enough tools were designed, implemented and utilized in classrooms. In this paper we describe the design of a collaborative learning activity for teaching Chemistry in Chilean schools. We describe a PDA-based software tool that allows teachers to create workgroups in their classrooms in order to work on the designed activity. The software tool has two separate modules: One module is used for supporting the teachers, which runs on a conventional PC and lets them create learning material and setting groups. The second module runs on PDAs and can be used by students in order to complete the group activity.