Although I threaten to do so in the description of this blog, I rarely talk about diving. I think that the last time that I did so was about 3 years ago. However, I recently encountered an intersection of my vocation and my avocation that I thought was worth sharing.
In September/October this year, my wife and I went on a liveaboard dive trip down the entire Sea of Cortez (or the Gulf of California to you folks in the USA). A liveaboard is a cruise of sorts where you live on the boat and go diving multiple times per day. You get to see some amazing things that would otherwise be unavailable.
I like to document my dives using mostly photos and simetimes video. The GoPro given to the Office MVPs last year (thanks, Microsoft!!!) at the MVP Summit has increased my use of video. Ultimately I return from these dive trips with a large collection of pictures and video, which I share out via Flickr, Facebook, OneDrive and YouTube. The problem is, these collections are disconnected, and while i try to tag and title the items, none of these collections really tell the story.
Thats where Sway comes in.
I’ve had access to Sway for a while, and while I did dabbble in it a bit originally, I didn’t really “get it”. I had a lot of video this time, and the trip warranted more “narration” than a simple collection of pictures could provide. I decided to give Sway another shot, with (I think) good results. You can see for yourself below. Click on the “Made with Sway” icon at the bottom left to open in full screen.
I found the Sway was exactly the right tool for this task. I was able to bring together diverse media elements from the trip, and organize them in ways that suited the narrative (not always chronologically). Adding the narrative itself completes the picture, and the presentation can stand on its own. I think, to sum it up, that Sway adds context to content.
Sway is an online tool. There are native clients available for Android, iOS ans Windows 10, but you are always working with online content – there are no files stored locally. Creation is simple. There are a number of preconfigured layouts which can be tweaked to some degree, and content addition is a simple matter of dragging and dropping from a set of cloud based repositories. You can share (and collaborate) at any time, and when ready, you can publish it on docs.com, where it will be available in galleries, search engines, etc.
In addition to travelogs, I can see this having great usefulness in the education space. I don’t think it will be replacing PowerPoint anytime soon – they serve different purposes. I would say though that in the absence of a presenter, I would likely rather have access to a sway than a PowerPoint deck – the Sway can do so much more on its own for explanations.
Finally, Sway is free. You’ll need a Microsoft account (either consumer or organizational) to use it, but you can simply point your browser at sway.com and get going on it. Give it a shot! I think you’ll like it. I do, and I think I’m going to dip into my back catalog to create more. WHen I do, I’ll be posting them in my diving collection on docs.com.
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