|
DAILY AI BRIEFING FOR EDUCATORS
HigherEd AI
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
|
|
|
|
|
Today’s Focus
NotebookLM Data Tables: Structured Research Gets Easier
Google rolled out Data Tables to all NotebookLM users today. This feature takes the sources you upload and synthesizes them into clean, structured comparison tables that export directly to Google Sheets. For educators, this changes how you organize research materials, course readings, and literature reviews.
The workflow is straightforward. Upload your sources—five to ten research papers, textbook chapters, or policy documents. Request a structured analysis with specific comparison points you want highlighted. The tool builds a table that captures key information across all sources. Export to Google Sheets and you have a resource ready to share with students or use for curriculum planning.
What makes this significant is the time it saves. Manual literature review synthesis takes hours. Data Tables does it in minutes. More importantly, it surfaces patterns and connections across sources that might otherwise be missed. Students see methodology compared across papers. You see how different scholars approach the same question.
Worth considering:
As AI handles synthesis, your role shifts from data collector to critical analyst. The real skill becomes asking better questions of the data. What patterns matter? What’s missing? How does this evidence connect to student learning outcomes?
|
|
|
Platform News
Luma AI Ray3 Modify: Video Transformation Without Loss
Luma AI released Ray3 Modify this week, a video generation model that transforms footage while preserving what matters most—motion, timing, and emotional delivery. You provide start and end frames, and the model generates the video between them while allowing you to change appearance using character reference images.
For educators, this is particularly relevant in fields like communications, performance, theater, and media studies. Students can now create professional video demonstrations without expensive equipment or extensive technical training. A student recording a lab procedure can modify that recording for different contexts. A performance capture can be adapted to show different scenarios.
|
|
|
Additional Notes
ChatGPT Wrapped: Reflection on Your Year
OpenAI launched ChatGPT Wrapped this week, a year-in-review feature inspired by Spotify Wrapped. If you use ChatGPT regularly, you now have access to a personalized summary of your interaction patterns throughout 2025.
This is more than a novelty. In your classroom, ChatGPT Wrapped becomes a tool for metacognition. Have students generate their own ChatGPT Wrapped summaries. What questions did they ask most? How did their usage patterns change over the semester? What skills did they develop? This turns tool usage into reflective practice.
|
|
|
A Final Reflection
When AI synthesizes your research for you, what becomes the core skill in your discipline? Is it still data gathering, or does mastery shift to interpretation and judgment?
|
|
|
This newsletter synthesizes developments from TLDR AI, TLDR Design, TestingCatalog, and primary source documentation. Each edition is curated specifically for higher education professionals.
Visit AskThePhD.com for more resources, daily tool tests, and tutorials for educators.
Dr. Ali Green
Professor & AI in Education Specialist
From the AskThePhD team at HigherEdAI
|