Using NotebookLM to select my Word of the Year

Since the release of ChatGPT in November of 2022, I have been grappling with how, where, when, or why I will or will not use Generative AI (GAI). I am not a fan of it, and to-date it has been more WORK to use it than to continue with life as I know it. As someone who came of age before such tools existed, I am accustomed to thinking for myself and solving my own problems (but I do confess to appreciating the assistance of Alexa in my home to play music). That said, I work as an educator and GAI has had an impact, and is a concern, in my professional life in increasing ways.

Because my initial reaction was aversion, I knew that to remain relevant in my profession I would need to understand what GAI is, how it works, and be able to discern where and when to use it. So many companies and apps were out there trying to make a quick buck off of teachers, and I didn’t like the feeling of wondering “which of these will stick or not.” I didn’t want to invest my time and energy into any particular tool only to have it become obsolete, or worse–start out free and then become costly.

I knew I needed to pursue some avenue to stretch myself and explore GAI in a healthy way. Towards that end I applied to become a certified educator through the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). This organization has been around for decades and has always been revered by the school librarian community as being both reliable and inspirational regarding the use of technology in the field of education. I confess that in my 20th year of education (last school year) I was feeling a bit apathetic and complacent about, not my job specifically, but rather the field of education-at-large. Post COVID impacts had me wondering how we (as teachers) would remain relevant and fight to maintain our presence in the lives of our students–we know full well that it is the relationships that we build that can’t be replaced by any form of AI. But how to compete with the gamification and entertainment-ization of education?

Last spring I completed the 10-week online coursework for the ISTE Certification process. In the first semester of this school year I built the Portfolio which I will soon submit for evaluation. I know I will not achieve certification due to the context of my school and the limitations of my role. But that is not important. I achieved that which I set out to do–to become reinvigorated around my profession and excited, not resigned, about the future of me in it.

I have found useful GAI tools such as Brisk Teaching, and have found my way to speak with students about the difference between a search engine (Google) and a Large Language Model (AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude). Sometimes I struggle because I am used to my brain doing the generative work. For example, I offered a couple of rounds of trivia at a party I hosted in the fall. I was shocked when an attendee (after the party) asked if I had used AI to create the trivia rounds???!!!!! I was appalled to think of doing that!! It was fun making my own trivia questions and it had NEVER occurred to me to ask an AI tool to do it for me. 😬

You see, that’s the crux–I haven’t found many authentic reasons for which to employ GAI as a tool. But I have been looking for them and trying to gain experience with the tools when I can. And believe it or not, I decided to use Google’s NotebookLM to help me find a “word of the year” for 2026. While I easily knew which word I wanted to select for 2025, as January crept towards me I had no obvious word calling out to me. NotebookLM has intrigued me from its initial release because it offers users the opportunity to select sources from which to interact and converse. Chatting within a “notebook” is a controlled environment–the user uploads the sources he/she has determined they want to refer to and interact with. Then you can “chat” using the GAI interface with your vetted and selected sources.

I made a “Word of the Year” notebook and uploaded the following sources: (a) the original article from GuidePosts magazine that I read back in 2012 that inspired me to adopt this practice; (b) a list of the words I have used previously, and (c) a web source that shared the process one might go through to select a word for the year. Then I proceeded to have a series of “chats” with the internal chatbot.

I shared about the areas of my life which I wanted to focus on for this year which included: financial savings (thinking more fully about what I want in retirement–and how to be sure I can achieve it), exploring the realm of spirituality, and using my hours on weeknights (between work and sleep) to be generative/productive. I want to use that time to work on my Turkish language skills AND to get more writing done (specifically being more regular with my posts here).

Generally I find myself to be a creative or generative person in the morning hours. That said, I don’t like wasting all my evening hours on Netflix or other passive pursuits. After sharing these intentions with NotebookLM, I had some words to consider and we did some back-and-forth chatting until I finally felt settled on a couple of word options: Deliberate or Alignment. The following is an excerpt from what the chatbot offered me to consider/think about:

After a few more chats and considerations, and considering a few other words, I came back to these two and ultimately decided that I felt “deliberate” was more active and clear, while “alignment” was a little too woo-woo or nebulous, for me. And so I had it, my “word of the year” for 2026: Deliberate. In the past it has always been a word I could partner with “to” or “of.” Feel free to review previous posts in which I reveal and discuss my new year’s word choice (visit the Series Menu on the blog to locate them easily). I had to play around with “deliberate” before I ended on this hashtag: #year2bDELIBERATE.

I can say I enjoyed working through this selection process using NotebookLM and will be recommending that my Extended Essay students use it. If it had existed when I was in university (undergraduate or graduate), I would have certainly employed it for my paper/essay writing.

Have any of you selected your word of the year for 2026? Care to share about your selection and intentions here with us? If not, stay tuned for, hopefully, more regular posts from me in this year (my goal is once a month). Happy New Year, Friends!