NotebookLM
u/Illustrious-Unit-838 · Oct 21, 2026
a year's worth of lecture work in 5 days
TL;DR
What did u/Illustrious-Unit-838 use NotebookLM for?
Preparing a heavy religious studies course, an instructor uploaded about 300 sources to NotebookLM and, working module by module from their own outline, produced 78 lecture PDFs plus indexes, a word dictionary, slide decks, explainer videos and audio overviews. They say it did a year's worth of lecture work in 5 days; their Genesis module alone came to 34 modules averaging 8 pages, a 272-page book before indexes and bibliography.
What they did
They uploaded about 300 religious sources and, because it works best in short 3-5 page chunks (10 pages at most), broke the material into sections from an outline they wrote. It created lecture PDFs, then a master index rating which sources were essential, high, moderate or low use and which were duplicates, a PDF index of all 78 lectures with the sources used, a dictionary of the most-used Greek and Hebrew Bible words, author bios, a scripture citation index, a table of contents for the student binder, slide decks to lecture from, explainer videos and audio overviews. They loaded a biblical atlas so it could draw maps too.
How it went
They say it did a year's worth of lecture work in 5 days; their Genesis module alone came to 34 modules averaging 8 pages, a 272-page book before indexes and bibliography.
"basically it did a years worth of lecture work in 5 days."
— u/Illustrious-Unit-838
Worth knowing
- It needs a clear outline and small chunks; long requests fail. Some lectures with heavy ancient-language content couldn't get an explainer video. Review every lecture for accuracy before students rely on it.
Try it yourself
Paste this into a chatbot, then add your own details underneath.
Using only my sources, write module [number] of my course on [topic], following this outline: [paste]. Keep it to about 5 pages, cite which source each point comes from, and finish with 5 review questions. Then tell me which of my sources you relied on most and which you didn't use at all.
Original post
See u/Illustrious-Unit-838's original post on Reddit → (Oct 21, 2026)
Filed under Admin & Inbox hacks
Sources
- u/Illustrious-Unit-838 on Reddit, Oct 21, 2026 — the original post