I Turned My Dissertation Into a Podcast Using NotebookLM

I recently experimented with Google NotebookLM to transform my dissertation on the data literacy of educational leaders into a 12-minute NPR-style podcast. The process was remarkably simple: I uploaded the PDF of my dissertation, and within moments, NotebookLM generated a podcast with two hosts delivering a polished, conversational summary of my research. At first listen, it felt incredibly authentic, with the hosts sounding like real professionals from NPR or a newscast. Take a listen for yourself above and be the judge.

For your reference, here is a link to review my written dissertation published on Proquest: It is called – Educational Leadership Efficacy: The Relationship Between Data Use, Data Use Confidence, Leadership Efficacy, and Student Achievement.

After listening to the podcast, while it held some value, it didn’t quite hit the mark I was hoping for. Rather than focusing on the core findings or the methodology of my specific study, the AI leaned heavily into my literature review and added additional details that were somewhat related to my dissertation, but not entirely accurate (I believe there definitely was some hallucination on the part of the model running NotebookLm). Additionally, on top of this, important conclusions about the data literacy skills of educational leaders measured in the study (principals were often discussed more so than elaborating the study looked at all types of educational leaders outside of principals) and practical recommendations were sidelined in the draft of the podcast it generated. This imbalance meant the podcast didn’t fully convey the most critical parts of my research that were specifically tied to the research I conducted for my dissertation.

Despite this, I see a bright future for tools like NotebookLM. With the ability to prompt and edit podcasts in real time, we could refine AI-generated content on the fly, ensuring it accurately reflects the author’s intent. I imagine a future where we can create dynamic, customized podcasts of their work, tailored to audience needs with just a few clicks.

Beyond this use of NotebookLM, I see many instructional practices that can be used with this podcast feature from this AI tool. More on that in future posts! In the meantime, I recommend checking out NotebookLM for yourself to see what you can create!

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