I was playing with Notebook LM a few weeks ago. This is an AI tool, developed by Google, that is supposed to help people interact with documents and resources. You can give it a bunch of content, and then summarize that content and ask questions about it. It has a cool feature that creates AI-generated audio overviews in a conversational, podcast-like format.

So I fed it my blog. This is a little tricky. You can’t just give it an RSS feed, or even an XML file. And the blog is BIG. I’ve been writing this for almost 19 years now. There are 541 posts so far, with more than 371,000 words. But I think I worked it out. I actually printed the XML file to multiple PDFs, and then uploaded those. And it seems like it worked.

First, I generated an audio overview. That’s the real parlor trick of Notebook LM. It’s the part that’s getting all of the attention:

It’s fine. They call it a deep dive. It’s not a deep dive. And the interviewer/interviewee roles change back and forth a couple times. But it’s still pretty cool. Then, I started asking Notebook LM some questions about the blog:

Can you summarize this content in 100 words?

This blog, written by an educator, reflects on the changing landscape of educational technology and its impact on teaching and learning over a 15-year period. The author explores the rise of blogging as a way for teachers to share information with students and parents. He chronicles his evolving understanding and use of social media tools like Twitter and Delicious. He shares his experiences with online teaching, professional learning networks, EdCamps, and the tension between innovation and practicality in education. The blog serves as a platform for the author to reflect on his own learning and connect with other educators who are passionate about improving education. The author’s journey highlights the ongoing need for educators to adapt to new technologies, find effective strategies for online teaching, and build strong professional learning networks.

That’s not bad, I guess. It’s interesting that it highlights things like Delicious and EdCamp, which were important but short-lived waypoints on this journey. It does use the term “journey,” which I really like.

What are the key benefits of using technology in teaching and learning?

Personalized Learning: Technology can help personalize learning for students, allowing teachers to tailor instruction to their individual needs. Computer programs can assess students, identify their weaknesses, and provide instruction at their own pace. This approach is especially beneficial in middle grades, where students have diverse learning styles and needs.

Enhanced Instruction: Technology can enhance the educational experience in unprecedented ways. It can help students develop a deeper understanding of course content and demonstrate their learning in innovative ways. For example, interactive whiteboards can make learning interactive and engaging.

Differentiated Instruction: Technology enables teachers to differentiate instruction and cater to the unique needs of each learner. Quick formative assessments can be used to assess the class’s needs, allowing teachers to dynamically adjust their plans to meet those needs.

Access to Information and Resources: Technology gives students access to a vast amount of information and resources beyond what is available in textbooks and traditional classroom settings. This includes primary sources, documentaries, analyses, and online tools for research and collaboration.

Collaboration and Communication: Technology allows students to collaborate and communicate in new and innovative ways, both within the classroom and beyond. This includes using social networking tools, cloud-based platforms, and multimedia tools to connect, share resources, and work together on projects.

Development of 21st Century Skills: Technology helps students develop essential 21st-century skills like communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. These skills are highly valued by employers and are necessary for success in today’s rapidly evolving world.

Increased Engagement and Motivation: Technology can make learning more engaging and motivating for students by providing interactive experiences, multimedia content, and opportunities for creativity and self-expression. When used effectively, technology can transform learning into a fun and rewarding experience.

That’s not inaccurate. It’s a bit wordier than I would have been, but it does capture the essence. I’ve said many times that technology helps us customize instructional experiences to meet the needs of each student, improve student engagement by giving them interesting things to do, promote collaboration in ways that are otherwise impractical, and encourage students to demonstrate their learning in new, authentic ways. I think this summary captures that.

What are the primary challenges to using technology in education?

This response was much longer. I’m cutting out a lot of the details here:

Limited Access to Technology
Inadequate Professional Development
Time Constraints
Resistance to Change Learning
Ineffective Integration
Technical Support Challenges
Equity and Access
Rapid Pace of Change
Lack of a Unified Vision

These challenges highlight the complex nature of integrating technology into education. While technology offers tremendous potential to enhance learning, its effective implementation requires careful planning, ongoing professional development, adequate resources, and a commitment to pedagogical transformation. Addressing these challenges is essential to ensure that technology serves as a catalyst for positive change in education, leading to more personalized, engaging, and equitable learning experiences for all students.

That’s an interesting list. It’s a plausible list. It reflects a lot of the common thinking about technology in education. But that’s not MY list. I think Notebook LM is combining my content with other sources. I don’t talk much about limited access to technology, primarily because that has not been a major challenge in the places I’ve worked. And I don’t talk about time constraints, because I believe that we make time to do the things that are important to us. It’s also interesting — but not surprising — that there are a lot more barriers than there are advantages. That may be reflective of my writing, but I like to think I’ve been more hopeful and optimistic than that, especially here.

Based on the content of this blog, can you suggest five topics that would be interesting to explore in more depth? Where should it go from here?

Here are five topics that would be interesting to explore in more depth, based on the blog excerpts provided:

The changing landscape of educational technology: The blog entries span from 2005 to 2020, documenting the rise of blogging, podcasting, social media, MOOCs, and other technologies. A deeper exploration of how these tools have impacted education, both positively and negatively, could be valuable.

The role of professional learning networks: The author frequently emphasizes the importance of connecting with other educators online. A closer examination of how these networks function, the benefits they provide, and the challenges they present could be insightful.

Effective strategies for online teaching: The blog includes reflections on the author’s experiences teaching online, including the challenges and successes. A more detailed analysis of these experiences, along with research-based best practices for online teaching, could be helpful for other educators.

The evolution of EdCamp: The author has extensive experience with EdCamp, both as a participant and organizer. An in-depth look at how EdCamp has changed over time, its impact on professional development, and its future prospects could be interesting.

Balancing innovation with practicality: The blog highlights the tension between adopting new technologies and ensuring they are effectively integrated into the classroom. Further exploration of this balance, including strategies for selecting and implementing new tools, could be beneficial.

Oof. That one cuts pretty deep. Blogs, podcasting, social media, and MOOCs are all dead, or at least unusable as real collaboration tools. There isn’t much to say about them these days unless we’re taking a nostalgic trip down memory lane. There aren’t any good resources for curating open personal learning networks like there were fifteen years ago. To get authentic engagement, you have to build a closed system now. Those systems will echo and amplify the voices that are in the room, and there won’t be any cross-polination with a wider community. The idea of an open online course with a couple thousand participants loosly connected through RSS feeds and hash tags is laughable now. The bots, algorithms, advertising, and disinformation campaigns would make it impractical to actually connect in a meaningful way.

Similarly, online teaching and EdCamps seem like relics from another era. After Covid, we moved as far away from online/blended/hybrid teaching as we possibly could, and haven’t been enthusiastic about re-embracing those technologies.

So that leaves balancing innovation with practicality, which is where I’ve been living for quite a while now. We can do amazing things. But we have to be careful to ensure that the best ideas are worth the effort. With the increased challenges of security, data privacy, planned obsolecence, and everything-as-a-service, we are much pickier now than we were a decade ago when we’re looking to adopt something new. We have more questions. We need to better quantify the return on investment. Mostly, we need to make sure that our use of technology is responsible. And that’s getting harder and harder.

I think that balancing of enthusiasm and practicality is where we need to focus now.