Generating Alternate Formats
Jody Ondich
Generating Alternative Formats
Alternative formatting for assignments or materials can serve a variety of students who either prefer or need this in order to absorb the materials for a course. This alternative presentation of materials allows for summary, discussion, overview for the user.
Example: Podcast for Review
Goal
This is another way of creating or formatting materials to accommodate students with various needs. It could help neurodiverse students, ESL students, dyslexic students, and those students who never have time to sit still, but who could listen on errands, in the car, waiting for appointments, and so on.
How It Was Done
Google Notebook LM can create podcasts out of materials that one submits to it for its formatting. It is a very simple process. You pick the materials that you want to have included in the podcast discussion, and then ask Notebook LM to create a chatty podcast, emphasizing the main points of the materials provided. This can include documents, websites, library materials, articles, interviews, and much more. The LM takes 3-8 minutes to create this podcast, but then it is available immediately for sharing and for listening.
Results
This is a more general description of how this might work, but the results are often very useful. The friendly, chatty, slower approach to presenting the materials mean that it may be easier to absorb the content, that questions that the user might have would be included inn a conversational style, and that people for whom academic English is sometimes a struggle will be able to understand and feel on top of these materials.
Considerations
Potential issues
Sometimes the podcasts will take longer to listen to than it would take to simply read something. A sample using a college “what degrees do we offer” webpage became a 50 minute podcast. It was very informative, but took a long time to listen to!
Best Tools for the Job
This is not something Copilot does well. Notebook LM is set up to create either summary documents or podcasts, however, so this AI would be a good use for summarizing key points of materials needed for study.
About the author
name: Jody Ondich
institution: Lake Superior College
Jody teaches philosophy at Lake Superior College in Duluth, and is part of a faculty development team there. Her focus areas are OER development, digital accessibility, AI use, and online course review programs. She has written 3 OER texts, housed at the University of Minnesota Open Textbook network.
