This is part of an assignment in my History Education class.
Sway is a program created by Microsoft as part of Office 365 that allows you to make “visually striking newsletters, presentations, and documentation in minutes” and it is available for free on the Microsoft store (https://sway.office.com/my) but another version is available with Office 365. A good how to site is provided here: https://sway.office.com/howtosway, and another well written review can be found here: https://www.howtogeek.com/404119/what-is-microsoft-sway/. To borrow from the above article, Sway is more of a storytelling and user-friendly version of PowerPoint.
A large difference is that while PowerPoint can be saved to your local computer, Sway is completely on the cloud, so no local storage space is required. A drawback of that is that it requires a constant internet connection, or people who would rather keep all their files on a hard drive. So, Sway has a resemblance to a personal website with a privacy setting. Looking over the how to, it flows like a timeline chart, and can be altered to go either top to bottom or left to right in terms of a presentation. This program looks like it could be a good alternative for businesses or educational institutions, as it would allow a user to easily send it throughout their organizations network and vice versa, as long as you are allowed access to the file. Sway has a series of privacy settings that can range from everyone in your organization (if using an organizational email) to any friends you personally send the link to.
There is also a setting that will allow any people that are sent the link to edit the file, it’s almost like a Wikipedia page that you are the admin of. You can also embed your Sway on any social media platform or website so people can view it without having to download anything or go through a sharing link. A nice plus that Sway has over PowerPoint is that while PP is creating from a blank slate, Sway has a search bar that will create a basic framework of a topic to work around. This alone makes it appear worthwhile as it can mitigate any writers block or makes an easy start for any procrastinators. And it also has the ability to easily change either the layout or any small details without having to do the painstaking piece by piece change like PowerPoint. Plus, if you just want to do a wholesale change, they have the remix button that will randomize different layouts, text fonts, etc.
Sway looks to be a Microsoft reinventing of the wheel, but this was done in a way that could be a breath of fresh air for students. Especially since PowerPoint has a stigma of being used by boring businessmen for endless slides about practically nothing. This results in what is referred to in the military as “Death by PowerPoint”. Retired Marine Corps General James Mattis put it simply: “PowerPoint makes us stupid”, and this was summarized in a New York Times article that also includes a comment from Former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster that it can overly simplify complex ideas best left to a five page briefing. That article can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/27powerpoint.html. Sway looks to have all of the perks of PowerPoint without having to leave out any complexities of a particular topic. In my opinion, Sway looks to be the next step of how to generate information to an audience but be able to keep them attentive to it.
A SeaDawg's Education 