The Testbed for Telecollaboration is a three-year initiative funded by the National Science Foundation to research and develop effective methods to support investigations collaborative and learning in communities of K-12 classrooms. Data exchange is a key concept of the Testbed. This paper describes the approach to data exchange that was first tried in and some the Testbed communities of the limitations that were encountered, and presents a direction for a far more flexible model. This new model simplifies data exchange among remote sites, facilitates the use of this data with a variety of data analysis tools, and gives users important support to guide their investigations and collaborations. Central to this approach is a new format for data exchange, which is outlined. We propose steps to define further the format and to create a widely used standard.