Your own documents: Gemini Notebook
Upload the chapter, the circular, the manual — and get answers only from them, with the line each came from.
A notebook built from your own sources, with a quiz, a mind map and an audio overview in your language.
Lesson 5 of 12 · Part 2: Make things
Your own documents: Gemini Notebook
Gemini Notebook (until July 2026 called NotebookLM) is the most useful tool in this course for teachers. You give it your own sources — PDFs, Google Docs, web pages, YouTube links, photos of pages — and it answers only from them. Every sentence it writes has a small number you can tap to see exactly where in your source it came from.
The idea
Grounded, not guessing
Because it answers from your sources, it invents far less than an open chat — and when your sources do not cover something, it says so. Its quality is your sources’ quality.
One source, many forms
From the same chapter it can make a study guide, a quiz, flashcards, a mind map, slides, an infographic, and an audio or video overview — a two-voice discussion of your material, in more than 80 languages including Hindi and Urdu.
A notebook per purpose
One per chapter, one per course, one for the school rule book. Keep sources tight: twenty relevant pages beat two hundred loose ones.
Step by step
- 1
Open Gemini Notebook and create a notebook
notebooklm.google, signed in with your Google account. Name it after the topic.
- 2
Add your sources
Upload the chapter PDF, paste a web link, add a YouTube video of a lecture, or photograph textbook pages.
- 3
Ask it three questions
Tap the citation numbers. See the exact passage each answer used.
- 4
Make something from it
In the Studio panel: a quiz for your class, a mind map for revision, and an audio overview — choose the language in its settings.
- 5
Listen and correct
Play the audio overview. If it gets the emphasis wrong, customise it: “focus on the three causes, for Class 8 students”.
Prompts to copy
Change the parts in [brackets], and the details to fit your own day.
Teacher
Using only these sources, make a 10-question quiz for Class 8: six multiple-choice, two true/false, two short answer. Put the answers and the page they come from at the end.
Teacher
Which ideas in this chapter are students most likely to misunderstand? For each, give a one-line everyday example from Kashmir that makes it clear.
Anyone
Summarise the key rules in this circular as a checklist of what I must do, with dates. Cite each item.
Try it
Your task
Build a notebook from one chapter you teach (or one document you must understand), and make a quiz plus an audio overview in Urdu or Hindi.
When you are done: You have a tool that turns any document into material for your class — and every line is traceable.
Check yourself
Think of your answer first, then open it. Nothing is marked or saved.
Why does Gemini Notebook invent less than an ordinary chat?Show answer
It answers only from the sources you added, and shows the passage behind each sentence.
You ask something your sources do not cover. What should happen?Show answer
It should say the sources do not contain it. If it answers anyway, check whether it drew on outside knowledge.
Keep the trust
Upload what you have the right to share.
A published textbook chapter or circular is fine for your own notebook. A file of children’s marks, a patient record or a client file is not — keep those out, or use the offline model in Lesson 11.