Google recently sent me an email introducing its new NotebookLM platform that was released in mid-2024. I wanted to learn how to use NotebookLM and see if I might be able to use some of its features to enhance my lesson-planning research. I started testing this AI software a few weeks ago, and this is what I have learned.
What Is Google NotebookLM
Notebook LM is a new tool that uses smart technology to help you create, organize, merge, and generate information. It offers smart organization and automatically categorizes and tags your notes, making it easier to organize and use relevant information quickly. This powerful research and writing tool combines multiple resources that help you to output simplified information in whatever form you choose.
The first step is to create a notebook around a topic, keyword, or theme. In the Notebook window, when you double-click the notebook you generated, it takes you to a new window where you can add the contents for that notebook. Below, I will outline all of the features and what they do.
Here Is How To Use NotebookLM
After you create a notebook in the main window of your account, there are three panels in the window that pops up when you double-click your newly created notebook. They include Sources, Chat, and Studio. Each offers a way to customize your content in the notebook. This is how you use NotebookLM and what each panel has to offer.
The Sources Panel
This area to the left of your notebook content window is where all of your notes within a notebook sit. It allows you to add, upload, or discover more information on a topic. There are two buttons, Add and Discover.
Add: This button lets you upload source files (PDF, .txt, Markdown, Audio .mp3 files). You can also add Google Docs or Google Slides directly from your account. You can add links to websites or YouTube URLs, and paste copied text. All of these are done within the pop-up window.
Discover: This button helps you find relevant web info and import it into your notebook with a single click. By clicking the button, you can enter a topic into the pop-up window and describe what you want to explore. NotebookLM searches the web using Gemini and presents a curated list of sources. This can help streamline the research process by quickly identifying and incorporating additional relevant materials. You can search, copy, and paste any of the content that you want to include.
The Chat Panel
This panel in the center of your notebook content window lets you ask questions and receive summaries and insights through your connected sources (note files). NotebookLM then uses Gemini AI to understand, summarize, and create the content that you request through your prompts in real-time. You can add, edit, and save new notes, create audio files, and make mind maps from your notes. Below is a detailed overview of each panel.
Save To Note: This allows you to save and edit info (it opens in the right Studio Panel) from your chat session or from other notes for later use.
Add Note: You can add notes to your notebook and save key insights or important information from your AI conversation. It will open up or create any note (it opens in the right Studio Panel), allowing you to easily edit the info before saving it as a note to your Sources.
Audio Overviews: This allows you to create an audio overview from your notes. This is really a cool feature, and it will be interesting to see if more options will be offered in the future. When you click this button, it actually generates a conversational audio file of two people talking about your notes (it opens in the right Studio Panel). It generates two AI voices, a male and a female, who explain your project. These voices sound great, but the downside is that there are no alternative voice options at this time.
Mind Maps: This option generates mind maps based on the information you’ve provided.
You can type in and generate additional details and documents, and organize your information.
The Studio Panel
This panel to the right of your notebook content windows serves as a central location for creating, organizing, managing, and editing your notes. It allows you to take content from your AI research and save it to your notebook. You can generate and edit different formats of content based on all of the information you’ve uploaded. It is where you control, share, and combine notes and insights using collaboration. You can create targeted summaries, detailed explanations, and other creative content. The details of each section are outlined below.
Audio Overview: This shows the audio overview that you generated from the Chat Panel, or you can generate it right from this Panel. You can have it re-generate audio by offering tips, you can change the audio speed, and download an audio file.
It also offers a Beta Interactive Mode that allows you to interact with the AI conversation, meaning you can actually ask it a question and it will answer you.
Add Note: Adds a note in the same manner as the other Panels. This panel is also where you would edit any of your other notes.
Study Guide: This button generates a complete study guide based on all of your notes combined. It includes key concepts, short answer quizzes, an answer key, easy format questions, and a glossary of the key terms.
Briefing Doc: This button generates an executive summary, main themes, key ideas, quotes, and a conclusion. All of these are created using ll of your combined notes.
FAQ: This button combines all of your notes and generates a detailed numbered FAQ of the contents.
Timeline: This button generates a timeline of main events or progression of understanding, a cast of characters, or a list of principal concepts.
What I Discovered
I found it easy to learn how to use NotebookLM, and I believe there is a lot of potential with this new tool. As someone who uses Google Docs regularly, I loved how it integrated with my Google Workspace. This makes it easy to pull from my Docs, Sheets, and other Google files to combine multiple resources and create projects as individual notebooks.
I generated two notebooks, the first was called The Rule of Thirds. The second notebook was Leading Lines. I added documents and other resources from my research content and pasted them into each notebook associated with the topic. I used prompts with each notebook to generate more information on each topic, edited as needed and combined those resources within each notebook.
Overall, I was happy with the results. It simplified and improved my content and created a script I could use later when working on the video production for the final material in the production of each of my courses soon.
I used the audio generation feature by copying specific text elements from my final draft and pasting them into a newly created note. I wanted a clean, clear, perfect course outline to see if I could use it as a script. I loaded my content and added the following prompt:
Start with Today on “Did You Know.” Today, we are going to explore leading Lines. Make the episode as long as possible without adding fluff. This episode should be positive and inspiring and embrace the content and methods provided. Only use the content from the note named Leading Lines for this audio overview. Give a CTA to visit learnandcreate.com, and for more great resources, join the creative push tribe on Substack. Add this CTA in the middle and at the end. Sign off with a thank you for listening to The Creative Push by Sheri Oneal.
As with all AI platforms, the prompts that you use are the key to getting the desired output. I then selected audio overview and waited. The result was an 8-9 minute conversational audio file with a male and female AI voice. The audio file it created blew me away. The quality, voice, and rhythm of speech felt natural and realistic. I took those audio files, brought them into Logic, and edited them into my show template with an intro and outro. The results are the two podcast episodes below.
I plan to use these audio conversations as an addition to my course content. I will be including these AI-generated conversational tips and techniques in my Learn and Create resources as well.
NotebookLM is a great tool for combining multiple files to generate precise outcomes. As an educator, I believe it is a great platform with multiple uses. Not only do I see a huge potential for helping me generate course content, but I also see it as a great method for students to merge their notes and create study materials to learn from.
This tool is intuitive, easy to navigate, and streamlines note-taking. It is a valuable platform, especially for anyone wanting to streamline information by combining multiple resources.
I hope that sharing my journey offers inspiration to you. Thank you so much for coming along!
