Veeple-Online Interactive Video Tool

Last week I helped one of my former ASU-CTEL faculty colleagues facilitate a social networking workshop for faculty. I was mainly a “guide on the side” and mentor/support person. It was very exciting to see and hear all of the interesting things they were planning and creating to integrate Web 2.0 tools into their teacher education courses. One of the participants, Dr. Nancy Perry, shared a tool she was thinking of using for short tutorials and student communication that was new to me. It is called Veeple and is an online, interactive video tool. Registration is free.

Basically, you upload your video (10 min./100mb limit) to the site, then add objects to create “veespots” to the video. These spots can be text, URL links, links to your MySpace or Facebook site, thought bubbles or speech bubbles. You can make any object inside a video interactive and place any interactive image into a video, all through a standard web browser.

You can view demos here: http://veeple.com/Showroom.php
Look at “People and Blogs”

This page explains in more detail about Veeple. http://www.veeple.com/VeepleLabs/WhatsVeeple.aspx

Think of a VeeSpot simply as a point of interaction in a video. Using VeeSpots, a person can instantly link a video to a blogpost, website or a friend’s MySpace or Facebook. An eBay Seller uses an eBay VeeSpot to link buyers directly to their auction. Do a search from the video. Link to Wikipedia. etc. A teacher could insert thought-provoking, guiding questions into a video clip for students to respond to in a class blog post. I think it has tremendous potential for encouraging and developing creative thinking. If I were using it in a K-12 classroom I would definitely keep it private for selected people (students) to view, and there may still be concerns about what they might be able to access from the site (inappropriate content) if they stray from the video. Teachers might be more comfortable using it with a small or large group on a Smartboard, pausing it on the veespots to allow students to post their responses on a blog or to write it in their journals.College students could definitely benefit from this kind of online social networking.

Collaborate With Other Video Creators
You can use interactive links to connect your videos with those of others enabling all content creators to socially share their videos across numerous websites.
http://www.veeple.com/VeepleLabs/WhatsVeeple.aspx

You can upload your videos to YouTube, then add veeple spots to it.You can upload your own thumbnail image to insert a clickable link with URL. A new feature that’s coming is one where you can choose to allow others to add veespots to your video, similar to voicethread for interactive possibilities. When you fill in the “Video Details” from for your video there is a pull-down menu called “Allow Spots.” To allow others to place VeeSpots on your video, simply choose the “Allow anyone to add spots” option. Or you can choose to have only your friends add VeeSpots by selecting the “Allow friends to add spots.” You can also select the “Don’t allow others to add spots” if you prefer that no one add spots to your video. You can set up private network for friends/family or make it public.

I haven’t tried uploading my first video to Veeple yet, but I can’t wait to try it. I’ll share my creation here on my blog soon. If you try it, or have other specific ideas about how you might use this tool in your classroom or professional development, I’d love to hear about it. What do you think? Would you consider using this in a K-12 classroom? Why or why not?