A cool new tool... and you...

I just realized that it my zeal over VoiceThread I totally forgot to mention how it has any applicability to you guys. We are pretty fortunate in that respect, though, because VoiceThread just happens to be a tool that might be quite useful to the professional or amateur historian or the teacher. The site was mostly designed with teachers in mind, actually. Steve Muth, one of the creators said in an interview about the site that the question creators must pose when they have a new idea on their hands is "Whose life does it change?" On whom will it have the most palpable and lasting effect? For VoiceThread, the answer turns out to be educators. 

Even if you aren't a teacher, though, VoiceThread can be helpful. One of the most important elements of any historical analysis is examination of physical evidence, like photographs, documents, etc. With VoiceThread, not only can you put these items in a forum that makes it easy to access and store them, but you can invite peers and fellow practitioners to comment on them with ideas, critiques and interpretations. You can create a community of peers simply by uploading your content and making it available to those people. The myriad number of ways to interact with the material helps ensure that everyone will find a medium conducive to expressing their views. Even the visual format of the site supports collaboration. Comments aren't posted simply as a vertical list, but instead in a circle around the item being examined, enhancing the feel of a roundtable discussion or forum rather than a lecture hall where there is only one right answer. 

To come back, VoiceThread effectively opens up the historical community to itself, helping to decrease the isolation and the occasional bookworm-ishness we are all subject to.