Above is a link to a Sway I created for a school district about encouraging parents to send their students to school with reusable silverware to limit plastic waste. It is also embedded into this site. Feel free to check it out!
Microsoft Sway is a tech tool in which you can create a presentation online and share it with students, parents, and others. It is like a slideshow without the actual slides because the presentation just continues sliding one way rather than having the outline of rectangular slides like in PowerPoint. It has a less constructed type of look, which some may find nicer. You can include headings, text, images (and they also provide free available for public use photos), links, videos, and so much more. It is very simple to navigate.
Microsoft Sway ties into the Danielson Framework for teaching in domains 1 (Planning & Prep) and 4 (Professional Responsibilities). If you are using Sway to teach, whether it be you are presenting your Sway presentation in the classroom or having your students look through it at home, it fits into demonstrating knowledge of resources and designing coherent instruction. By using Sway, you are aware that there are other mediums other than Slides and PowerPoint in which to teach from. This is also important if you are giving students a Sway presentation to look over at home because that means you know they can access it outside of school and that you know it is a medium your students can learn from. Regardless of if you teach a Sway presentation in person or just allow students to read it online, you have designed coherent instruction by putting together a presentation that you think will make sense to your students and they will be able to learn from it. For domain 4, Sway fits into communicating with families because you can use it to send out information to families such as classroom announcements, rules, newsletters, etc. It is an easy and fast way to communicate information without just sending them a boring email with every announcement/update just listed. The Sway not only gives families an insight into your classroom, but also into you as a teacher. If you create a Sway that displays your personality (albeit still professionally), families appreciate that. Connecting on a more personal level by making a friendly Sway goes a further way than just an email.
I can see myself using this in the classroom because it is an easy and very quick way of conveying what you want to students and even their parents. It is less clunky than PowerPoint and is more smooth. You do not have to click through slides and can slide/scroll through the presentation at your own pace. I think it definitely works better for take home activities and information to parents because of the more individual approach since you can scroll at your own speed. PowerPoints work better to present from because of the slide by slide format. In Sway, since all you do is scroll, you can see the next/previous headings and sections while you are reading one section on your screen. This could be distracting to some students if you are presenting one idea in class. They could read ahead and miss what you are saying, or they could get lost in a sea of text from the previous heading/text. That being said, I would only use Sway for take home activities and information I want to convey to parents. PowerPoint makes more sense to use in the actual classroom.