These Two New Features Cement Google’s NotebookLM As One of My Favorite Learning Apps.
While AI tools are highly controversial, and I remain highly skeptical of them in general (especially as someone who writes for the web for a living), I have to give Google’s NotebookLM credit for being the rare AI tool that I feel meets my standards for being ethical and useful.
This rich language model only uses the content you feed it, making it a great way to organize notes, extract key ideas, and boost productivity. And now, thanks to a new update, you can use it to create flashcards and quizzes, making it the perfect study companion—and it’s still free.
What NotebookLM Can Do
If you’re not familiar with NotebookLM’s capabilities, here’s a quick rundown: You start by uploading your materials into “notebooks,” which act as a single source of information for a given topic. (SSOT is where you store all the information, resources, and materials related to your class.) You can upload local files, files from Google Drive, links to websites or YouTube videos, or just plain copied text. This is especially useful for students, as you can enter links to articles referenced in your study materials, upload PDFs from your instructor, or even add digital copies of your textbook, bringing all of your approved study materials together in one place.
You can then ask the chatbot questions about the material, have it create an audio podcast discussing the material ( which you can then interact with ), and more. I use it most often when I’m working on a large project: I’ll input all the interviews I’ve conducted, all the research I have, and any other relevant data, and then ask it to help me find quotes or create an outline. It’s also great for summarizing and organizing my notes and study materials when studying for a master’s exam.
And with the latest update, you have more options: in the sidebar, you’ll see buttons for Flashcards and Quizzes next to the Mind Maps and Audio Review buttons.
Testing new NotebookLM features
To test these new features, I selected from my collection of notebooks one filled with material for a certification exam I was preparing for.
Instant tests
Previously, NotebookLM allowed you to create quizzes, but it only generated plain text quizzes with an answer key at the end. The new Quiz feature is much more complex.
The test, which was created from seven PDF files, was incredibly detailed and easy to use. It asked a question, offered four possible answers, and when I clicked on one, it told me whether it was correct or not, along with an explanation of why the correct answer was correct. All the information was taken directly from my own materials, so I didn’t have to worry about checking sources.
Easy cards
There are many flashcard apps out there, and I’ve looked at many of them, but I’ve never settled on one because creating flashcards is invariably tedious and expensive. In contrast, the flashcards generated by NotebookLM were easy to use and, again, perfectly tailored to my content.
There’s not much to say about these — they’re flashcards; you simply flip them back and forth to see the questions and answers — but notably, unlike other flashcard apps, NotebookLM can’t tell you whether you got the answer on a card right or wrong. Some other apps will ask you to indicate how you did so they know how often to show you the card again, in keeping with Leitner’s method of reviewing flashcards . That’s not to say this approach to flashcards is terrible, though, as it adds a few useful extra features. For example, once you flip a card over by tapping on it to see the answer, NotebookLM adds an “Explain” button. Tap it to get more context on the answer, or to see where exactly from your uploaded materials the card was generated.
NotebookLM is one of my favorite educational apps.
I’ve written about all sorts of learning methods and learning apps, and I’ve used most of them myself, whether for work, grad school, or personal development. I’m skeptical of most AI tools, not only because they can be inaccurate, but because they offer so many shortcuts that it makes it hard to absorb and remember information. NotebookLM, on the other hand, simplifies learning by using proven methods, and because it only pulls information from resources you provide (and therefore presumably trust), you can trust its results.
The addition of quizzes and flashcards makes it an even more powerful and useful study tool than it was before, and that says a lot. I’m going to use both of them to prepare for my next exam.