Another great teaching and learning tool. NotebookLM's automated podcasts will blow your mind

NotebookLM shows how AI can be used right now in learning. The automatic podcasts will blow your mind.

I uploaded a large book on learning theorists, at 300,000 words, saved as a 700+ page PDF. It covers 2500 years, with 300 learning theorists and has taken years to write. Her's the list of Learning theorists and topics covered:

Chat

It gives a pretty good summary, briefing and timeline, century by century, across 2500 years. 

Then, I started to ask it questions, using the chjat function, engaging in dialogue with my own work. It is superb. If every teacher, department, course had its curated content in this context, this would be a boon for students. If you want to know some specifics about a particular learning theorists or more geneal view of a group, it does a credible job.

Learners can ask general questions, then, when engaging in a class or assignment, specific questions, getting carefully considered answers. I asked it some general questions about historical trends, why so few women in learning and so on. Pretty good…

What is impressive are the provenance numbers that link to the source text in hte document for most components in the answer.

Podcast

But the big hit comes at the end. I asked it to do an ‘Audio overview’ of all 300 learning theorists in 700 pages. This was way beyond my expectations. A dialogue podcast, at around 11.5 minutes, was amazingly realistic, with a male and female commentator bounding off each other. The language was informal and sounded like real dialogue. I have since asked people to listen – they ALL thought these were real people.

It covered the material well, pulling out relevant theorists and making insightful observations as they took us through 2500 years of learning theory. 

For novice learners who want a friendly introduction, those with poor literacy skills, English as a second language, but also dyslexic learners, this is a wondrous feature. I can see this being a great introduction to any topic, subject, course or assignment. 

Take notes

You can also create and manage notes. You select the box in the upper-right corner of one or more notes, and NotebookLM displays text-buttons with actions to take on the notes. These include:

Summarise the selected notes.

Suggest related ideas.

Create a study guide.

Create an outline.

Combine the selected notes into a single note.

PS

If you want REAL podcasts and deep dives into this content, there are 36 1 hour podcasts in the 'Great Minds on Learning' series here…
https://greatmindsonlearning.libsyn.com/