Reimagining AI Tools: Exploring NotebookLM & Thea Study - Adventures in Advising

Matt Markin from CSU San Bernardino and Ryan Scheckel from Texas Tech University dive into the exciting world of AI-powered tools reshaping the experiences of both students and advisors. They explore Google's NotebookLM, an AI assistant that digests your documents, delivers smart summaries, and even creates personalized audio overviews. They also check out Thea Study, a beta-stage platform offering AI-crafted study guides, flashcards, and quizzes to supercharge learning. Could these tools transform how students and advisors interact with information? Tune in for a thoughtful look at their potential—and the critical questions we still need to ask about AI in education.

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hey and welcome to Episode 124 of the Adventures in Advising podcast. This is Matt Markin, and I'm joined by Mr. Ryan Scheckel from Texas Tech University. What's up? Ryan, 

Ryan Scheckel  
Hey, Matt, how's it going? 

Matt Markin  
It's going well. So I'm going to briefly say something random and that there are some changes coming to the Adventures Advising podcast in May. So check out the podcast, social media throughout April, for what that surprise is going to be. I honestly can't wait to share this info. Ryan, can you guess what that might be?

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, one of the things I've always enjoyed about the podcast is that it doesn't sit still. And if I, if I, if I'm imagining what that news could be, it might be something about adding perspectives or voices or something like that. Maybe, I guess everyone will just have to find out what's going.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it. So with that said, let's get to today's episode. And Ryan, we've chatted about AI for quite a bit of time, and there's been various episodes over the last four months having to do with AI and generative AI. And we've quote, unquote interview ChatGPT about higher ed and academic advising. But today we're exploring some other AI platforms and kind of testing them out to see, what are they all about? What can it do? Is it beneficial? In our opinions? Is it beneficial? How could others, such as advisors, administrators, even students, possibly use this, these different AI platforms, and the ones we're looking at today are Google's notebook, LM and Thea. And I should also just add that anything we say today about these aa platforms, it's our own opinions based off us testing out these platforms, we in no way endorse any product. So Ryan, what makes you excited about today's episode?

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, I you know, anyone who's listened to the podcast for a while knows that I still have that optimistic, hopeful viewpoint of, like, what these technology tools could do, and then I have that geeky, little sci fi voice in me that's like, and maybe one day we could have like, an R2D2, or C3PO style droid in our life, every time I imagine an AI tool that would serve me best, it would be present, like physically present. It's so easy, out of sight, out of mind. It wouldn't require magic words, you know, like I think about smart speakers and how you have to remember to wake them or whatever, with their proper word. It would also be proactive in my life, you know, appropriately, not threateningly or or in some other way a negative influence, but that it would, it would say, Hey, how's it going? Do you need help with this? And not like Clippy from way back whenever with Microsoft, but just sort of helpful. And so anyway, I'm a sucker for early adoption and playing with new shiny tools anyway, and I will always want to jump in and see what they're like and see if I can break them, see if I can figure out where their shortcomings are, and maybe if they're actually going to do something cool or not. 

Matt Markin  
I guess that's always that mentality that you have, of play around with it so the sandbox and and test it out and see how it benefits, maybe how it's not so beneficial, but how you can improve on it.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, and certainly before it goes behind some paywall or something.

Matt Markin  
Exactly. So it makes a lot of money off of it. But let's start with notebook LM. So Google says that notebook LM is the ultimate tool for understanding the information that matters most to you, and that it is built with Gemini 2.0 and that notebook LM can be viewed as your personalized AI research assistant, considering you can download or upload, I should say, sources such as PDFs, for example, articles. You can put website links, YouTube video links, audio files, Google Docs, Google Slides. And what notebook LM will do is summarize what what you upload. And so, for example, if you upload two articles, notebook LM will try to create these connections between the topics. They even provide citations, audio overviews and among other things, and notebook LM, the website says that they do not use your personal data to train notebook LM, so they are saying that what you upload is not used in training. But Ryan talk me through how you tested out notebook LM.

Ryan Scheckel  
First thing that really stood out to me, and you shared it with me, was that the deep dive podcast format of summary. Certainly have played around with tools that can summarize multiple documents to some effect or not. We were involved in a scholarly paper for the Pittsburgh annual conference in October 2024, where we had so many documents that we were trying to find themes and stuff from and I think it was little PDF or small PDF. You know, there's limitations on how many documents or whatever. Which was, one of the problems with our methodology is we just that we couldn't find a tool that could handle the sample size, so to speak. So I'm familiar with them with AI, informed tools that will synthesize multiple sources or documents or whatever in a text format. But the idea of the deep dive podcast summary was something that was interesting to me, and so for folks who are watching the video version of this with notebook LM, which was sharing on the screen right now. It allows you to create notebooks, and I don't, I don't think of organizing my investigations, if you want to call it that, my lines of inquiry this way, but, but it keeps, sort of keeps things separate, which I find helpful as a user, the fact that it doesn't just, you know, upload something and get put into a list somewhere else, that visually they keep them separate. They also seem to try to create some sort of simple icon or emoji to do the visual summarization as well. And so the first thing that I did was to create a combined notebook with two articles that I happen to have on my phone. Yeah, I'm that kind of advising nerd, I guess. But Janet Schulenberg article from the mentor, what is student success and who is responsible? Was the first source was a PDF that I had downloaded to read, probably on a plane or airport somewhere, and then I think I'd run across cantwell's article from this sort of sociological perspective, student success as a social problem, evaluating the Student Success movement and its influence on higher education from a different academic lens. So I happen to have those two PDFs on my phone, and so I uploaded them to notebook LM. And you know, it does create a kind of in the middle of the page. It does create a simple summary, maybe a paragraph or so, that you can do a lot with. You can mind map, you can add notes to and you can use it in what you might think of as like a evaluative or study tool sense. But I very quickly, went to the right of the screen and clicked on the audio overview, deep dive podcast and generated that for those who might be watching. Since it was already generated, I can reload it. It does. I haven't played around with enough to know if it will create new ones, and I haven't done anything yet with the interactive mode, like while it's playing, because that kind of freaks me out. I feel like I'm interrupting people in a conversation to activate my microphone and try to influence it. So I think that that's an interesting next step. But after the the deep dive conversation is created, and you listen to it. There's other things that you can do based off of that, including developing a study guide, sort of a briefing document or summary. This timeline feature is really interesting to the historian in me, to sort of see how it organizes the concepts in these two articles that say, in a historical sense, it also provides a list of like the people mentioned in the in the podcast recording, but also in the article and then an FAQ document. So it generates a lot of tools off of whatever you upload to it. I think what we might spend some time discussing is the fascinating, little deep dive podcast that it generates.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, before we get to that, though, just to point out, I know, when I was testing, I was using the free version, we're using the free version as well.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, as far as I know, I haven't paid for anything. 

Matt Markin  
Apparantely, they do have a free version. So on notebook LM, and then I'm assuming a paid version, notebook, LM plus. So like the free version, you essentially, like you've just talked about, uploaded these PDFs, so these articles, but you can also do the website, links, Google Docs, Slides, all of that good stuff, just like you mentioned. Has, like the one click summaries, FAQs, timelines. I. Um, and then the generate those audio overviews and so, kind of like its own little podcast. But I guess the plus version, you get all of that plus five times more audio overviews that you could do. And there's a premium features as well that are available for Plus users, which I guess includes like you can share your chat only notebook, but also has advanced chat settings and other analytics. I don't know, because I don't have the plus version, but I just want to point that out, what we're using right now is the free version.

Ryan Scheckel  
And I think for some new users, that might be overwhelming just the Plus features. I'm always curious about it, but I also know that my curiosity, my tendency to click on everything, see what it can do, or whatever, can diffuse any sense of momentum or productivity, you know, bouncing around from Oh, what about this? And what does this do, or whatever I understand it's, it's a new frontier, so to speak, in product development and computer learning and AI and that kind of stuff. But even this simplified, free version presents so much more than I was expecting, because initially what I heard was, it'll make a podcast. And so, you know, the fact that it does a lot more and is sort of flexible, and the notebooks are like, I could continue to add sources and I could, I don't know. I guess I might have to, if I add a new source, I don't know if it'd give me an opportunity to generate a new studio or new audio podcast. You know, I don't know what that would be like for someone using the free version. Essentially, you might want to hold off in generating the audio overview if you still have sources you want to upload.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, yeah. It can definitely be overwhelming. I just know what like what my colleague told me about it and was talking about this, you know, the podcast version of it, or this deep dive conversation like that was the one thing I was like, I'm intrigued by this. Let me look this up. Let's upload and test it out. I was in awe, but it was also just weird as well, for that deep dive mode. But I think there's a lot of benefits to this. The one thing, though, just to also point out, is that at the bottom of if you're on the notebook LM site, like the bottom of the screen will say, notebook LM can be inaccurate, so please double check its responses. And these just a good reminder for anything that you know you don't necessarily believe everything 100% always double check.

Ryan Scheckel  
=Maybe one of these days an AI is going to generate the infamous Abraham Lincoln quote that you should never believe everything you see on the internet.

Matt Markin  
But I would say, let's, let's jump in. Let's, let's listen to a clip or so about this deep dive mode. 

Ryan Scheckel  
the first thing that struck me because this was the first for my Google account. This was the first that I've ever generated and and the thing that stuck out to me immediately from the beginning was the audio overview, or deep dive podcasts attempt to sound human to sound real, and the first audio overview that it generated started with a laugh, which I'm gonna play that now and see what it sounds like.

Video audio  
Welcome everyone To the deep dive.

Ryan Scheckel  
And I imagine that the creators of notebook LM and the audio overview portion of it, they know that podcasts aren't always begun first thing like the like you and I, we had a conversation before we hit record, and I don't imagine. I wonder what percentage of generated audio, overview, deep dive, podcast files include some sort of lead in audio that implies a conversation was being had beforehand to make it more trustworthy, less produced, more human. That was an interesting idea to me. There are two voices, as far as I know, I didn't see any place to change the options and and you heard what I think of as the male voice. It seems like a strange world to be living in presuming the genders of AI voices, but I think that's the intent of the makers, is to have a difference in the gendering and the quality of the voices. And so there's what I think of as a male voice and what I think of as a female voice. And in this particular audio overview, or deep dive podcast for the Student Success documents, I uploaded the female voice early. In the episode The podcast, if you want to call it, that just said yeah, a lot. And I felt like that was unusual, an unusual amount of Yes, uh huh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Frequent as the male voice was introducing the topics of the articles and what they were going to be discussing in the podcast. There was, there was a lot of affirmative voicings, but very quick brief and not a lot of contribution. But then, as we move into the middle, let's say of the recording of the audio file. There's a lot more give and take and back and forth and that sort of stuff.

Matt Markin  
But I think also, I think we've all been in conversations where you might have that person that's constantly agreeing or acknowledging every few seconds what you're saying.

Ryan Scheckel  
I'm mindful of the meta nature of this current space of our conversation. Matt, I tend, I tend to fill space. I know that in my role, especially as an advisor, not every student fills the space of the advising relationship. And so advisors drive conversations. Think it's naturally my personality. I also do a lot of presenting and recruiting. And dead air in any format is something that is hard to sit with for me, even though I do really value the moments when you can be still and be quiet, when there's others around, it feels strange, and so I don't know if that's something that's common in other podcasts. I was thinking back to the podcast that I do listen to besides this one, and I'm like, I don't know that there's that relationship between the hosts. If one of them would eventually say, hey, could we do? You hear yourself, but...

Matt Markin  
But I remember when you sent me the clip of the beginning of that podcast, I guess, conversation and with the person laughing, and my immediate response was like, I want to know what was so funny. I want to I want to know what the recording was, if they were recording what was like 30 seconds before that?

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, there's part of me, you know, there's this natural human element of our phones are listening to us. Our devices are listening to us. I didn't say the words that I felt like a nerd that I had these PDFs on my phone, but it was a thought process, and I'm like, maybe they're laughing at me for having these documents on my phone. I don't know.

Matt Markin  
You know, it's a good thought to have. I don't know, always be nice to AI. But do you want to play some more of one of the clips?

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, so as I mentioned, as the the podcast is generated as the conversation continues. They do go through, especially if you're familiar with the sources you're uploading. You can see how they work through them. It feels like in a sort of top to bottom sense, like a reader would, which, again, I'm curious about the design. You know, sometimes when I'm reading an article, I don't just go top to bottom, I go straight to the conclusions. I want to get a sense of like, where it's coming from, whatever I might read the abstract and the conclusions, and then fill in the middle. I don't read everything in a linear sense. And I found that that was interesting, at least in the design, in my very brief interactions with it. But there's a clip from the middle of the episode where they're talking about these ways of understanding student success, and in particular, the way that Janet Schulenberg represents the Student Success movements, effect on academic advising. Janet has written multiple histories of academic advising, another reason that I have that article on my phone and and there's a clip where the hosts are discussing the history of academic advising that I found interesting. 

Notebook LM  
Okay, so to really see how we got here, yeah, Schulenburg takes us, like, way back, way back, with his history of academic advising, all the way back to Kenyon College in 18, 4018, you even imagine? Yeah, it's like, a long time ago, yeah, Rutherford B Hayes, he was a student there, yeah? He later became president, yeah. So you wrote about this new thing, yeah? Called an advisor. And so it wasn't, it wasn't academic advising, like we think about it now, right? No, not at all. Schulenberg explains, everyone took the same classes back then, right? Yeah? Like rhetoric, math, philosophy, Latin, classics, the classics, right? And one professor my team. All those things, yeah, and even be kind of like a parent figure, yeah to the students, right? So this advisor thing started when things geared a little more morecomplicated, I guess, yeah.

Ryan Scheckel  
Okay, I think that was seven Yes. But there was also a couple other affirmatives. The yeah lady was on this episode of their deep dive podcast. But I found, again, the vocal quality, or I don't even know how it that's one of the things about this, where I understand that some people could feel like this is magical, because that seems so human. I i imagine somebody recording this, it's so easy to envision what was generated as a real person having a real conversation with somebody who keeps saying, Yeah, but the way back, like that, like vocal fry, that's fascinating to me, that there's something that can generate that kind of audio that isn't a human voice, and then the pause, the dramatic pause for things got more complicated. I mean, it's, it's a it's just a fascinating tool. And I think I would have to imagine that's the idea behind generating these audio overviews. If it was just a robotic voice reading a summary or whatever. I don't think as a consumer of the product, I would pay for the premium version. So if the free version can make it sound that real, that's that's pretty interesting to me, as far as like, it's design ethos, the philosophy behind the product they're developing.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, I mean, when you played that clip and other ones that we've kind of these other notebooks that we've created, and listened to this deep dive mode, like I was just thinking, like these articles sometimes lack emotion. They can be dry, they can be dense. They can be terminology heavy. There's a lot of jargon in there. You might get five minutes in reading an article and then be like, What did I just read? So this conversation mode, I think, is great. I mean, people, lot of people, like listening to podcasts, hopefully like listening to this one, but it may be to me, like you can this helps to maybe break down some of those complexities and makes things a little bit more digestible, hearing it from these two AI talking about whatever you upload. So I thought it was very fascinating as well.

Ryan Scheckel  
And you have, I have talked about this in particular with our own work in academic advising, in, you know, sort of our presentations at conferences and our own natural interests, our brains tend to activate when it's kind of a mash up of something already known, in our case, a lot of times popular culture, and then something we love and our, you know, value deeply the work that we do in academic advising, that's where this entire relationship started was the ways that our interest in the work that we do and the ways our work can be informed were activated by a unusual blend. And so in an academic space, in a learning space, to have a conversation that is more accessible, more natural, I can see the sort of purported power of these audio overviews, not just being a direct read in a straightforward voice of a summary generated by AI. I've thought about this before, especially watching folks go through our orientation process in the summers, especially early on, before sort of new leadership and new thinking about orientation as a recruiting event. It was a lot of like stand and deliver lectures. Our next guest is so and so, and they're going to tell you something directly. And after watching it for multiple times over multiple years, I started to daydream about it being run differently, perhaps more effectively, but certainly more entertainingly, like a Late Show, where you have a host, sure, and they do an opening monolog, hopefully it'd be entertaining and engaging, but then they introduce a guest, and they interview the guests, and you have breaks with music and things in between. And it's the sort of edutainment kind of approach that you see in online technology tools, where people are like, I'm going to present it in the most interesting way possible, to really engage the learner.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, now it definitely makes it something different. Do you have another clip you want to play? Or do you want to move on to the

Ryan Scheckel  
well, we have one from this notebook in particular. Sure it's the way that is structured. Now that I've done multiple audio overviews, there is a structure. There some attempt at establishing banter and engagement around the topic and introduction sort of thing, conversation in a typical linear format, and then a wrap up. And so for the Student Success notebook, audio overview. I clipped out that wrap up so people could see how that goes.

Notebook LM  
You listening student success? Yeah, it's not just a number no or slogan. It's much more than that. Yeah, it's a big idea, yeah, with a long history, and it's been shaped, yeah, by by who's going to college in America, yeah, and how ideas about education have changed, and what's going on in society. It's not just about what students do, yeah. It's also about the system, yeah, and the responsibility of the college, right, the whole landscape, yeah. So here's a final thought, yeah, for you to chew on, okay, knowing all this history, yeah, and knowing that student success is this social and systemic problem. What big changes do colleges need to make, yeah, to make sure all students, yeah, no matter who they are, have a real chance to succeed? Yeah, that's the big question like, how do we balance the students own choices with the college's responsibility? It's a tough one. It's a tough one. No easy answers, no easy

Notebook LM  
answers. But, but really important for the future of higher ed in America? Yeah, absolutely, we didn't. We didn't really mention other sources today, but yeah, if you're interested in digging deeper, yeah, you know the names we've mentioned, yeah, like Lum...

Ryan Scheckel  
And look, I know that ended before they get into the other names, but the they tend to summarize, give you the big picture, and then pose A question or two, which, again, as an educator, I imagine students being asked something that doesn't come from me. I imagine asking an entire class to take a shared reading generate one of these audio overviews. See how they're different, see if they ask different questions at the end, I can't remember who I was talking to about AI tools. Maybe I was listening to someone talk about it, but what they did was have, oh, it was a math professor. They were they had them pull up a shared AI tool available that is often used in math, upload a word problem from their discipline and have the students in the class share all the ways that it gave different answers, in a way to provide a bit of a cautionary tale to suggest maybe we do Need to double check its responses. So I imagine, as an educator, use encouraging, encouraging our students to use this tool to see all the ways it generates differences, not just assuming, okay, well, these two imaginary people must be experts in this. Now, because an AI reviewed the documents that I uploaded, but they're all. They all tend to be structured that way that I see the introduction, then going through the article or the sources in a linear sense, and then creating that wrap up and summary with a question to chew on, and that sort of stuff.

Matt Markin  
I think it's a good segue to go into, like the study guide, aspect of it, the timeline, FAQ, what were your general thoughts on those?

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, after the audio overview, it kind of made the text based resources that it generates a little less engaging. You know, part of me wanted to export the timeline, for example, out of this notebook and start a new note, new notebook with that timeline, just to see what sort of result would happen because, sure, text based summaries of articles or readings or whatever are a useful tool. They're not the right now where I'm at. They're not the first thing I want to look at again. I did mention that the historian in me found the timeline interesting, and so to see how the timeline of main events in these two articles are presented, it was largely based on the Schulenberg article, because that's the structure it takes, but even can't Well's social problem. The approach to student success does have a historical analysis. And, you know, I can't disagree with the way that it's been organized, in a linear sense, in a as a product. I understand, when given these two sources, why it would do them, why would generate a timeline that is purely linear, linear. I did like the cast of characters and bios as one of the tools, because that breaks that linear sense presents Things, maybe thematically. But I have been making the argument that histories of academic advising shouldn't just be presented in straight lines, that there are themes that go across any sort of structural attempt to make eras or partition out art history, because that's not exactly how history operates, but but for the most part, I think a student might really find some useful tools in the Study Guide or the FAQs, particularly when it comes to generating possible questions to study off of. But it is one of the places where this tool falls short of others, which I know we'll talk about here in a little bit. It doesn't directly quiz you, I'll put it that way. So it does require some effort, and maybe that's that's where I start to fall apart on it as I'm like, Look, I needed to be fed to me at this point. I don't know, but I did find it interesting. After listening to the audio overview that I was I found the text based generative product a little less interesting.

Matt Markin  
Yeah. I mean, the conversation about the to me, and I think a lot of people, is probably the highlight of notebook LM, but yeah, I mean, you were mentioning student and I think this could be a great way to also, like, how else can we see students using it, maybe even advisors and administrators, but yeah, from a student standpoint, I mean, the being able to upload, like your lecture notes or PowerPoint slides from class, the readings you have to do, I think, to be able to create an instant study guide, or almost instant within a few minutes. Sure, it does give you something to kind of, especially if you're go to class and then you're like, maybe that night or the next day and you want to review your notes. This could be a great way to kind of sum up everything that you learned in class and organizes it in a certain way, which I think, regardless of class, using it for when you're when your classes a student could also probably upload, like their syllabi or the due dates, and then create some have better time management, because then they can ask when's my next exam in this class, or what assignments are due next week? But yeah, I mean, to summarize that I think, is like notebook LM for students, at least, hopefully maybe can help students understand the material faster. Again, kind of get organized, have better time management. But if they're reading articles and they're like, I just want, like, a fresh voice to kind of talk to me about it, you have that deep conversation mode.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, and I one of the things since I've created two notebooks, I noticed that it does, oh, well, perhaps is personalizing things a little bit. I decided to create one around Mark Lowenstein's chapter from Academic Advising approaches called envisioning the future of academic advising. And when I uploaded that and I created the audio overview the way that that audio file started was different in a way, and so I would play a quick clip from there.

Notebook LM  
Everyone. Welcome back. You know, whether you're, like, actually in college right now, or maybe you're a parent, or even just somebody interested in how, like, education is changing, one thing that's so important is academic advising absolutely but, you know, it doesn't always get a ton of attention. Yeah. So today, we're going to, kind of like, take a deep dive into what the future of academic advising could look like.

Ryan Scheckel  
So it welcomed me back, and I thought that that was interesting. Certainly, I've got two notebooks created so far. They're both about academic advising, so I don't know if they're drawing in the text, so to speak, the words selected for the audio overview the importance of academic advising, but not getting the attention it deserves. Or if that came out of Mark's chapter. But at this point, what notebook LM thinks about me as a user is, this is the only topic that matters to me and that was interesting. And then there is a little bit of I'll play a quick clip. I. A little bit more dialog, a little less, yeah, and in this section where they talk about key takeaways from Mark's chapter,

Notebook LM  
Well, I think the key takeaway here is the shift in how we view the advisors role, okay? Because, you know, traditionally, advising is often seen as like a support function, right? Yeah, like helping with course registration or figuring out degree requirements, or maybe pointing students towards career resources. Exactly. It's like a service you use when you need something specific. The Lowenstein argues that advising should be so much more than that. He says it should be a fundamental learning experience for the student. Interesting so the advisor almost becomes like a teacher. Then that's exactly it like they're not teaching a specific subject like history or biology, but they're helping the student make sense of their whole educational journey. Okay, I can see that like how all their different courses and experiences connect together. Exactly. It's like a professor who helps you connect different concepts within a course, right? But in this case, the advisor is helping students see the connections between different courses, you know, encouraging them to think about different ways of knowing and understanding the world across disciplines. Wow, that's a really cool way to think about it, right? And it's also about helping students figure out how all these different learning experiences contribute to their larger goals,mwhich, you know those goals can change over time too. Absolutely, it's an ongoing process of reflection and refinement. So it's not just about picking the right classes to graduate. It's more about understanding how those classes fit into a bigger picture. Exactly. It's about helping students create a meaningful and coherent educational experience for themselves. I love that, and so between those two clips in a second notebook the different source, you can see a little bit of the differences in in the way that the the audio overviews are created, a little bit more personalized, perhaps, and in that sort of linear sense, because that's certainly that portion that was presented there in the takeaway about how advising should be a locus of learning, advisors should be educators and not a service, and that kind of stuff. That's something I'm very familiar with, having spent as much time with the article or that chapter, but I did note I was like it couple times in the audio overview for the Lowenstein chapter, they alternated back and forth in pronunciations of the name, which I thought was interesting but, but that's just an example of how notebook LM as an AI, informed, driven tool isn't the same experience every time. And I think that that can be something for users to consider, that maybe, if you want the same result from every time you interact with a product, the fact that the audio over you is intended to humanize it a little way, you're going to get some variation, and not just in the you know, suggested reliability of what's generated, but in the actual structure of what's generated. The in the second audio overview, the female voice said, yeah, a lot less and sort of took a different role, which I thought was also interesting.

Matt Markin  
So we talked about how maybe students can use it. But how do you see advisors or administrators possibly utilizing this?

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, I when you mentioned uploading a syllabus, one of the things I thought about was all of the things that as an administrator, I've created, reports, ad copy, in the sense of like, promotional material, that kind of stuff, any of the presentations that we do, we could generate transcripts from them. And then, you know, have a kind of like FAQ that comes off of that, or whatever the the notebook LM gives any user a chance to group documents for or sources for, for lack of a better word, and then think about them differently, because oftentimes we think about the education of a student, students experience with our offices as episodic. But I was talking with a good friend recently about the idea that you could have a so to speak, a transcript, a summary of an advising interaction with students across their whole advising career with you, and you could get a summary of that, and you could get someone else to comment on what they see in those interactions, and then that can inform your thinking about it. I can see how some people might be overwhelmed by that, but I also think that there's a lot of potential meta learning that advisors frequently don't have the time for, or when the time presents itself, we've moved on to other activities, and so there. A chance to think differently about the work that we do, to analyze our documents and programming differently, and then if we're engaging others with these tools, to have conversations about those and I think that that's where there might be some really productive conversation about the trends that we're seeing on the summaries generated by AI based on the work that we're doing.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, no. 100% agree with that. I mean, I could see, like, maybe an administrator. I mean, I'm not administrators. It's just me assuming, but yeah, I mean, it's kind of taking a lot of these documents or materials, like, let's say, orientation, materials, wellness, resources, conduct policies, and you know, maybe you're creating some quick FAQ section that you can put on your website, or creating a handout of something absolutely but I mean, even like, Let's say maybe taking, like, comparing proposals or annual reports, and then, you know, looking at, like, what are similarities, or do we achieve our outcomes or whatnot, but I think, like, from an advisor, just from like, a professional development standpoint, it's like, okay, I want to read articles. But again, kind of going back to, you know, these can be lengthy articles. These can be very dry. And, you know, this gives a more human aspect to it maybe makes things easier to understand. So I think this could just be give great breakdown of concepts from an article that might be able to help advisors out if they're trying to increase their professional development in advising.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, I my, my whole professional development journey includes the desire understanding the benefit of but then struggling with the reality of making that happen on a regular basis. The whole reason that I got involved in mashing up popular culture and academic advising scholarship was because I struggled with that, and so this tool could absolutely help anyone who is having a hard time connecting with the body of work, the literature around academic advising in any of the work in higher education To make it something more manageable.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, no, for sure, and I know we can probably talk more about notebook LM for another couple hours, but let's jump into another one, and that's Thea, or might also be known as Thea study, but it's an AI powered study platform that enables students learning experiences on various topics and from their website, Thea sites that they assist with an AI supported study guide or summary that you feel more confident understanding the material when you head into your test or class discussion. And for educators, tutors, teachers, parents, coaches. Thea seamlessly allows you to place automated, personalized learning in the hands of your students that adapts to meet them where they are and provides valuable feedback when you are not there. So currently, Thea is in their beta phase. So age wise, Thea is geared for students who are at least 13 years of age, and looks like it's also supports over 80 languages at this point, Thea helps you learn again. From what they say on their website is thea's ability to ask you questions helps you gain understanding of your subject through the Socratic method of learning. And like I mentioned, they are currently in their beta phase. That looks like they have a free version. That is good, I believe, until the end of June 2025, but Ryan, what was your experience playing around with this platform? 

Ryan Scheckel  
I found some similarities. Again, for those who are watching the video version, the the interface for users is a lot like notebook LM, in the sense that you can organize your learning around groups of sources. And so I created one in the just around Mark lowenstein's chapter again, just to compare what would what comes out when you upload something and and the the way that I created my account, maybe I might, in a little bit, have a just a slight regret that I was honest because I said I was An educator, and so the version of what I'm seeing is the educator version. It does give you a chance which which I can demo a little bit to see what the student side of it is. But I imagine that the demo might. To be a kind of a veneer that is not inaccurate per se, but it assumes some things about the user experience we are at our institution, currently a blackboard institution. And you know, every once a while I'll remember, oh, what I'm seeing isn't the way the student sees it. And then I have the chance to go to the Student Preview. And so, you know, I just, I think about products that create that I don't bifurcation, maybe unnecessarily, an unnecessary user experience difference, but maybe it is very necessary. Maybe there's some real benefit that I'm missing right now. So I uploaded the Lowenstein chapter, and it created its own title vision for the future of academic advising. I could edit the content so I can add more readings, that kind of stuff. You'll see that there's an optional review of the study guide that it creates, and then a chance to explore the student view, which I did, but the other options are to share with your students and to get insights into student learning. And that's where I was like, Ooh, I can see one. Why the pay wall is coming more quickly for this. Because if anyone wanted to use it as an educator, I am certain that the integration with your campus and your information systems and student information and directory stuff or whatever, there's a lot of questions I answer there. I think on the student side of it, uploading things and generating quizzes off of those things, I could see why that's a bit of a wild west sort of situation, but the fact that educators could conceivably send some stuff to all of their students and then get insights into like the results of the quizzes and the questions that are generated, why there'd be interest in that as an educator and as an institution, but why there'd be concerns about privacy and security and and all those sorts of things. But you know, as somebody who has taught classes and and had weekly quizzes, and I can see which questions they keep getting wrong or and I'm like, Well, what is there something I'm doing? It's something that's not present in the instruction or in the design of the the the exam or the quiz or whatever. I see some possibility there to rethink, as an educator, the way content is presented in the course, the way assessment is done in the course. But the fact that fiia is its own product, I wonder if it's ripe for the purchasing, for somebody like one of the big LMS is one of the big learning management systems, or something like that. If I wonder if this, I wonder if Thea is positioning itself to be purchased. That's I don't know enough about that world to say with confidence that that's even a thing, but I do believe there's a chance that, to the best of my knowledge, the learning management systems I've been a part of, they don't have that kind of certainly not AI generative quizzing and insights and that sort of stuff. 

Matt Markin  
Well, I mean, regardless of what happens with that, I know, like my student, a student, one of my students, told me about this platform, and was there an anatomy physiology class, and they had their first exam, didn't do too well somehow. I don't remember how they found out about the but they utilized it for like the study guide, the flash card aspect, the quizzes, and from their standpoint, it did help them prep them better for when they did their second exam, and they walked out of that classroom after that exam feeling more confident that they knew more of the answers than they did on the first exam.

Ryan Scheckel  
Sure, and I think that that is it's interesting. The question I immediately have is, well, what was their test prep strategy before? Could it be articulated as a minimum of test prep compared to that minimum plus more so is, is Thea the difference, or is just doing a little bit more the difference? 

Matt Markin  
It could just be, maybe, how it's, uh, how much it's interactive compared to what they were doing prior, and maybe it was more visually appealing, and they felt, yeah, maybe they liked this version better, but I guess that could be a nice segue to kind of see like from a student view what they would actually be viewing, I guess.

Ryan Scheckel  
As an educator account, I can click on the optional explore student view, and when I do, it leads me to their options. One of them is just, I'll say this interface, this page, was not quite as helpful because it creates key terms at the bottom, above that sort of topics that it finds in the readings. And then you have the material, or the sources, so to speak. And when I first looked at it, the only thing I saw was the start studying button. And when you click the start studying button, it gives you four options. There's the smart study, which is answering questions that are generated by the AI, the study guide, the flash card and games under memorize. And then a test, which will generate a potential test. I did the smart study just because I wanted to test it out to see what it looked like. And the first question I answered was appropriate and accurate for the reading for the source that I uploaded for the Lowenstein chapter, I'll say that just a cursory review of the options, the multiple choice options presented wasn't particularly challenging. It wasn't hard again. I know this source material really well, but it was, I mean, the way that the other the wrong options were worded, which is something I struggle with. As an educator, I'm great at generating the question to get them to think, and the right answer is obvious, but I make some really obvious wrong answers in my multiple choice. And so anyway, I was maybe projecting a little bit, but I answered the first question correctly. I was proud of myself, and it gave me further reading, which I was like, that's again as an educator, that is interesting, because I didn't it was the future of academic advising, publication from the Chronicle of Higher Education from a couple years ago, which is behind a paywall. I thought was interesting idea, but they they said, Oh, you're learning about this idea. And we find, I'm assuming, on the internet, other reading available if you wanted to pursue this more. And that was that was an interesting component. I haven't been able to make it. Do it again. I've answered another six or seven questions. I've answered wrong just to test that out or whatever. 

Matt Markin  
Now, when you if you pick a wrong answer, does it give you an explanation of why it's wrong or what would be the right answer?

Ryan Scheckel  
So we'll use this question. The question is, what is a significant change proposed for the status of advisors within academic institutions? The first option is, advisors should have the autonomy to guide students without being tied to specific academic programs. Second is, advisors should be limited to offering administrative support without educational input. The third is, advisor should be recognized as faculty members with comparable teaching responsibilities. And the fourth is, advisor should be viewed as administrative staff with no teaching functions. I think that there's a little bit more challenge in this question compared to others, because the words autonomy and guide students without being tied sounds to be in line with the tone of the article, but its advisors should be recognized as faculty members. Oh, and it generated another sample suggested reading pillars of strategic planning in higher ed. But the next question I'm going to intentionally answer incorrectly, oh, it's a matching question and a locus of learning aims to positively change students understanding of education. My go best locus of learning encourage students to take responsibility for their learning incorporates maintaining electronic portfolio to track progress. I'm going to click that, and it just shook me off if I go to another multiple choice, Oh, this one has none of the above as an option. But if I incorrectly select one and submit Oh, there were, it'll indicate in red what the right answer was, and then it does give you some sections from the readings to consider your answer from. Let's submit another potential wrong answer. Oh, I got it right on accident. Let's see meta cognitive learning focus objectives in advising, focus on helping students reflect on their own thinking. I'm gonna say that's false, and it gives me some bullet points from the chapter to consider, so it doesn't let me go back and change it, which is sometimes a testing or quizzing strategy or whatever, because. It's capturing that and providing that. Perhaps this is a question that students are getting wrong or whatever, for anyone who might be in the educator role,

Matt Markin  
Have you tried the the flash cards?

Ryan Scheckel  
No. So that would be under the memorize I think that says, Welcome to Smart Flash cards. Interesting. I don't know how what I'm supposed to do. It's not I mean, I understand what flash cards are, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this.

Ryan Scheckel  
Oh, if I say it out loud, oh, it flips it over. Okay, cool. So sorry for those who aren't watching. The flashcard is metacognitive learning objectives, and you can click on it and it flips it over. Says goals that focus on awareness and regulation of one's own learning processes. And then you self report, yeah, I got that right. The next card says role of advisors in higher education, and this is advisors guide students in academic planning and career development. I'm gonna say I got that one wrong, but I would imagine I don't. Have not used other flashcard apps. I've seen students using them. I tend to imagine the actual physical flashcard, and I think lowenstein's Chapter isn't vocabulary heavy, so it's probably hard for it to pick out.

Matt Markin  
But I mean, with this, at least on this page, like it gives you the flashcard option, but there's also, like, the matching and guess the term option that maybe depending on, let's say it's a student and what they're studying, one of these three might be a better option for them, right?

Ryan Scheckel  
And you know, it's like I said, there's, there's certainly certain sources that are going to be better for these tools and than others. I don't know where in the academic advisor world, this particularly helps. Maybe, if you have an onboard process where you have a lot of terminology policy and it is helpful for people to brush up. Perhaps you could create a study guide around the onboard process. That might be an interesting use in an academic advisor role.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, I would just think like, from an advisor standpoint, meeting with students. This could potentially be something that maybe it's not necessarily that, it's the but a student is wanting help with studying, and, you know, something more visual with with flashcards or matching or, you know, quiz taking, something like this might be something that they can inform students about. I'd be interested to see what the faculty have looked at this and what they think about it,

Ryan Scheckel  
yeah, I do know. 

Matt Markin  
Or I guess other faculty, aside from yourself, from having taught classes. So

Ryan Scheckel  
yeah, I imagine when faculty are trying to ascertain the student experience of their course, there could be, in this sort of generative study tool, some really fascinating insights about what people like. How much are they? You know, if it was all in one place, so much of that happens outside the classroom and outside of the the faculty purview that there is this sort of plausible deniability of like, well, that's up to them. And that's like, Well, now, now you might be able to get reports on how much they're actually reviewing, and perhaps you could discuss the tool. But yeah, I think advisors knowing that these tools exist, especially when students discuss their struggles. You know, one on one or group supplemental instruction or tutoring may not be the best fit for a student. Maybe something that's a little bit more asynchronous or On Demand in a format could be a real help for student too.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, I just think overall, it's the topic of AI and generative AI and these eight various AI platforms is, to me, it's okay, as an advisor, to talk to your students about this stuff, because it's, it's still here. There's all these new ones that that are out there or probably will be here soon. So it's kind of like if you have a personal opinion not liking AI. I mean, you know, it's okay to still talk to your students about it and maybe the positives of it, what those benefits might be. But I think also, if a student is going to use it, it's also whatever the policy is at your institution or within that specific department that that class falls under. Look at the syllabi of your classes. That there's a blurb in it remind your students to look at that and even for them to even just chat with their professors about it as well.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, I think the first time I was surprised by a conversation about AI in higher education was when somebody was talking about the focus groups that they were doing with their students to find out how they are using it. Everything I remember up until that point was this sort of reactive, negative, how, what are we going to do about this? It was all problematic. And I think it's obvious in our approach here today that the dialog, the learning, the testing, the critical and creative thinking is going to be a lot more helpful trying to avoid words that sound like aI words. It's going to be more beneficial for everybody if we do that kind of thinking than problematizing, stigmatizing and thinking in a corrective sense. 

Matt Markin  
Well, I don't know. Maybe I'm talking to AI Ryan right now,

Ryan Scheckel  
That would be such a waste of resources.

Matt Markin  
Well, I think we'd reach time on this. I think this was I'm always wanting to learn more about it, and, you know, testing these out, so maybe we'll have future episodes looking at other AI platforms. But Ryan, always good to have you on the podcast. 

Ryan Scheckel  
Thanks for having me. Matt.