Every week, I read George Couros’ blog posts. Although all of George’s thoughts and insights draw me in and encourage me to reflect on my own learning and growth, this particular one titled, “Creating a Podcast with NotebookLM; What are the negatives and positives of that process?” piqued my interest in a different way. Are you too curious about it? You can read more about George’s experience HERE. In this post, George shared how he learned from his Innovator’s Mindset podcast guest, Cristina Capretta, about a digital AI tool called Notebook LM. This innovative technology can take text and transform it into a conversational podcast between two people, sounding surprisingly authentic.

He went on to share how he used some of his written reflections from his Saturday email about Adam Grant’s book Hidden Potential (one of my favorites, by the way) to bring his thoughts to life. I couldn’t help but wonder if I could do the same with my own writing. To say I was blown away by the results would be an understatement.

Inspired by George’s ideas, I decided to give it a try. I took my latest blog post, Defining Moments, (you can read it HERE) and copied and pasted it into the Notebook LM AI platform. Incredibly, the platform transformed my written reflection into a podcast, where two virtual voices engaged in a rich conversation about the ideas I had shared. Hearing my thoughts come to life in dialogue form was surreal—it’s one thing to write about defining moments, but quite another to listen to them being discussed by AI voices. As George mentioned in his post, it wasn’t perfect, but the depth it added to my perspectives in other ways was beyond anything I could have imagined.

Curious? You can hear the AI podcast conversation about my blog post HERE. I’m excited to keep experimenting with this and “app smashing” to explore even more ways to bring these conversations to life, just like George did. I can’t wait to dive deeper and see where this journey takes me—I just need to play around with it more!

There’s More!

Then, I decided to take it a step further by uploading my blog post into the digital platform George recommended, Pictory. Pictory allowed me to transform my blog post into a digital story, making my ideas more accessible to a wider audience. I used the platform to enhance the experience by incorporating images that aligned with the themes and concepts in the post. To add a personal touch, I recorded a voice-over with my own voice (though I could have used an AI-generated one) so my readers could hear directly from me. The result? My blog post was no longer just text on a screen—it became a multimedia experience that brought my words to life in an entirely new way.

Check it out HERE and below!

This experience left me thinking: Could this give others access to my content in different formats, helping them engage with it in ways they otherwise wouldn’t? 

And more importantly, How could teachers leverage this technology to transform student writing into something more dynamic?

Using Notebook LM to Transform Student Writing

Just imagine the possibilities. While I haven’t yet shared this with my colleagues—since I’ve only recently discovered these ideas myself—here are some specific ways I’m thinking teachers could use Notebook LM to enhance student learning and develop key skills:

Turn writing into interactive podcast-style conversations: Students can input their essays, stories, or reflections into Notebook LM, allowing the AI to transform their writing into a spoken dialogue. This helps students hear their ideas in a new format, bringing their words to life and strengthening their oral language skills.

Provide a fresh perspective on their own work: By listening to their writing as a conversation, students can gain insight into how their ideas sound aloud, helping them develop fluency, clarify their thoughts, and improve their overall expression.

Create multimedia experiences with text, images, and voiceovers: Students can take an existing piece of writing and transform it into a multimedia experience by pairing their text with relevant images and recording a voiceover. This process not only enhances their understanding of the content but also helps develop their presentation skills and engages different learning modalities, allowing them to express ideas more creatively.

Enhance peer learning and collaboration: Students can share their AI-generated conversations with peers, sparking collaborative discussions where they analyze and critique each other’s work. This promotes conversational skills and encourages listening to and understanding different perspectives, fostering a more well-rounded approach to their writing. During peer collaboration, students can ask questions such as:

• What part of my writing stood out to you the most?
• How did my ideas make you feel or think differently?
• Is there a part of my argument or story that could be clearer?
• How do you think I could make my writing more engaging for the listener?
• What did you learn or take away from hearing my piece?

Showcase student writing in a new format: Teachers can use these AI-generated conversations to highlight student writing in a unique and engaging way, building students’ confidence in their writing abilities and helping them develop fluency in expressing their ideas both in written and spoken forms.

Support auditory learners: Some students may process their ideas better through listening. Turning written work into audio conversations can help auditory learners engage more deeply with their writing while building oral fluency.

Reach all learners: Some students may benefit more from hearing a conversation about their writing than from rereading their text. It could become an invaluable tool for auditory learners or those who need a new way to engage with content.

Encourage deeper reflection: By hearing their writing discussed in a conversational format, students are prompted to think more critically about their choices and ideas. This auditory experience helps them identify areas for improvement they may have missed when simply reading their own text. It also provides an opportunity for self-reflection, as students can hear how their writing affects others and the impact their words have when spoken aloud.

By using digital tools like Notebook LM and Pictory (just to name a few), teachers can create new learning experiences that enhance student writing, strengthen oral language and conversational skills, promote fluency, and encourage students to listen to and engage with different perspectives. 

However, it’s crucial to remember that while AI can enhance and support learning, it should not replace the critical thinking, creativity, and emotional intelligence that only human insight can provide. AI serves as a tool to amplify learning, but true growth comes from the thoughtful integration of both human and artificial intelligence.

Bringing Writing to Life for Everyone

As I reflect on my journey of exploring various AI tools to enhance my thinking, I’m excited about how I was able to transform my blog post into an immersive experience. I remain curious and eager to learn more about how new AI tools, like Notebook LM and Pictory, can revolutionize the way we share, reflect on, and elevate written work. What started as simply reading George Couros’ blog post, where he reflects on his own learning, led me to push myself out of my comfort zone.

Experimenting with my blog turned into a revelation about the potential of AI to breathe new life into content and make it accessible to others in creative ways.

Now, the question is: How will you use these tools to let your students’ voices shine in ways they never imagined?