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Ask an ID: NotebookLM

Drowning in course readings or research notes? Discover how NotebookLM can help you organize, synthesize, and streamline your work by using AI-powered technology that pulls only from the documents you upload. Learn more and check out a quick tutorial created by ACC faculty in this article.

Illustration of a colorful, cluttered desk with stacks of books, a coffee cup, keyboard, and a computer monitor displaying the text "NotebookLM." Below the desk, the phrase "Ask an Instructional Designer" is written in bold, playful text.

Ask an ID: NotebookLM

Dear Instructional Designer,

I have a lot of reading materials and student submissions I want to use for a literature review assignment but I’m struggling to organize everything and make it manageable. Any ideas on how to streamline this process?

-Overwhelmed Organizer

Dear Overwhelmed Organizer,

A tool you might find incredibly helpful is NotebookLM. It’s a research and organization tool that lets you upload your own materials, then uses AI to help you synthesize information, create outlines, and prepare resources. The beauty of NotebookLM is that it only pulls from your uploaded documents and footnotes exactly where it got the information so you stay in control of your sources.

For your literature review assignment, you could upload your readings and student submissions, then use NotebookLM to highlight key ideas, draft outlines, or even generate summaries that save you time without losing accuracy.

You can access NotebookLM here. To help you get started, I encourage you to check out this tutorial created by Dr. David McMurrey who teaches Business, Government & Technical Communications at ACC: Getting Started with NotebookLM.

I hope you find this tool helpful in taming large sets of materials while keeping the process transparent and manageable.

Happy synthesizing!

-Instructional Designer