I asked Gemini Notebook (formerly known as NotebookLM) a dress-code question, and it gave me the answer and the page number from our handbook. This is one of many efficiency ideas shared in today’s show.
Vickie Echols says the turning point for her was when she was barreling through the hallway and the teacher she was with stopped and asked her, “Ms. Echols, do you always walk this fast?” That moment was a turning point for Vickie, and when she saw AI, she wondered how she could save time on tedious tasks to make more time for human moments, so she wrote AI for School Leaders: 62 Ways to Lighten Your Workload and Focus on What Matters.
Vickie has lots of ideas, including how to fix tone in emails, how a superintendent used Gemini Notebook (formerly known as NotebookLM) to summarize meetings for board members, and the usefulness of Gemini Notebook when you’re answering handbook questions (this tip is for teachers and administrators!).
In short: NotebookLM, now called Gemini Notebook, lets teachers and school leaders load their handbooks and policy manuals and ask questions that come back with answers and page numbers. Vickie Echols, author of AI for School Leaders, shares how leaders are using AI to help with efficiency, tone, and how to spend less time on tedious work and more time with people.
Vickie Echols spent 40+ years in schools before she wrote about AI, and her test for any tool is whether it gives you time back for people. Here’s what she answers:
Here’s where the facts in this episode come from, with the time stamp so you can hear each one. Checked October 20, 2026.
This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki
Vicki Davis (00:00): What question did a teacher ask in the hallway that changed how this guest leads? How can one AI tool hand you the exact page number in your handbook about an issue? And what helped one teacher whose emails kept landing wrong? Today we’re talking about AI for teachers including Gemini Notebook, formerly NotebookLM, and how it can give you back time for what matters. This is Tech Tool Tuesday, Episode 1012.
Announcer (00:31): This is the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.
Vicki Davis (00:35): Today, we’re talking with Vickie Echols. She’s been a principal, a curriculum coordinator, university educator, and a consultant. Her newest book is from ISTE, AI for School Leaders, 62 Ways to Lighten Your Workload and Focus on What Matters. So, Vickie, you’ve worked in leadership a long time. I want you to describe a moment from your leadership journey that profoundly changed your view on what matters most for students and staff.
How did one principal realize she was heading toward burnout?
Vickie Echols (01:06): I was walking down the hall with a teacher, and she and I were moving from one place to the other, and my pace was so fast that she stopped and she goes, Ms. Echols, do you always walk this fast? And I, realized at that moment, sort of in the moment, that I was always kind of moving from one to the next. One issue, burnout was coming, and it really was an overwhelming stress level for me in many of the roles I had. It was really an eye-opener to me to start thinking about it and also witnessing the same crisis happening nationally. So when I heard about the tools that generative AI was offering, I realized that this was kind of a pivot that I could offer for people who have also felt that way.
Vicki Davis (01:53): One of my favorite quotes from a former pastor of mine was, walk slowly through the crowd because everybody has a hurt. And we want to slow down, but then we’ve got more and more emails and so many things. So do you have any other things that matter most that have shaped the types of things you’ve picked in this book?
How can AI help teachers spend less time on tedious work?
Vickie Echols (02:11): We’ve got to pump the brakes on work that’s tedious and really focus in on the time we spend with people. I remember walking into a new campus or a new classroom and knowing that it’s going to take time to build that trust. I think using tools to help you minimize that tedious, boring work to get to those moments of interaction and, really be able to enjoy as well as get curious and learn and reclaim a lot of that and valuable time that we need for our own well-being. So we can focus on what matters.
Vicki Davis (02:45): I know those who are listening are on. We got two Vickies. Well, yes, we do, but that’s OK. You can tell our voices apart. One’s from Texas, one from Georgia. You can tell by accents. What kind of AI uses are you seeing where true efficiency comes out of it?
Why should school leaders learn AI if it feels like one more thing?
Vickie Echols (02:58): I think to zone in on the on the idea that. We have to really study this new tool because it is with us. It is not going away. Students are using it. And although it’s hard to add one more thing, I had another biscuit to the plate. We’ve got to be able to spend time learning it because it’s here to stay. What I did in the book was I picked up the research that the Wallace Foundation did on what were the primary responsibilities of a principal and or as a school leader, lead teacher or someone who’s guiding any kind of group like collaborative decision making through communication, supportive relationships, professional learning, decision making. Based on data, crunching that data for school improvement, and family and community engagement.
Vicki Davis (03:51): Do you like AI note takers or not? Now, I want to caution, AI note takers can only be used when you’re not dealing with confidential student information, obviously.
Can NotebookLM answer questions using only my school’s own documents?
Vickie Echols (03:59): One tool that I have just been so excited about, and it’s come out since the book was written, and that’s NotebookLM, so that you can drop in your current vision statement, your policies, all of the things that have already been, curated by your team, and then start to curate questions based on just that information. You can pull in, of course, other research, but it’s really a nice bubble to be able to use the AI tools. I’ve had good luck with ChatGPT, with Gemini, with Claude, as long as, like you said, we’re really keeping those guidelines strict about FERPA safety and security of our student information and adults as well.
How can NotebookLM answer questions from my school handbook?
Vicki Davis (04:40): You just hit on one, Vickie, the NotebookLM. So when you feed in your policy manuals, your student manuals, your whatever, I had a question today about dress code for a particular grade. And I was like, okay, is this particular thing allowed for a secondary student? And NotebookLM fed back to me, no, this is what’s allowed and gave me a page number.
Vickie Echols (05:04): Exactly.
Vicki Davis (05:04): Just I think every school should create a NotebookLM for all their policy manuals, at least for their admin team for revisions. I know parents that have loaded it in them for themselves, you know.
Vickie Echols (05:16): It’s true. I had it. That’s exactly right. I had that same idea popped up when someone was saying they check on their sick leave, put the sick leave policies in and then decide whether or not your particular situation is going to play and stick with that.
How can a superintendent use NotebookLM to brief school board members?
Vickie Echols (05:30): And the superintendent told me she uses it for her board and gives the podcast information. Curated from LM to give them a preview or post a conversation about what was discussed in case they missed the meeting. I thought those were brilliant ways to use it as well.
Should I listen to a NotebookLM audio overview before I share it?
Vicki Davis (05:47): Wow. And of course, we want to say when you use that podcast generation, which is a great tool, now they have video overviews. Don’t just create it and send it to somebody. I’m sure she listens to it to make sure it’s accurate. Ultimately, we’re using it to help us. We’re not offloading our thinking. I think that’s a really big piece to kind of delineate there.
Vickie Echols (06:07): It’s like you said, it’s a tool. Like any tool, if you’re going into woodwork, you’re going to have some safety factors to wear goggles. You’re going to have a manual to really remind you how to be smart with this tool. And that’s why I think there’s less to worry about and more to train and talk about As a new frontier. It’s really exciting to me that this is happening, but it is something collaboratively we can just find, I think, a whole lot of new ways to be smart and to be creative
Can ChatGPT help me fix the tone of my emails?
Vickie Echols (06:39): and communicate better. But one of the things that I don’t believe a lot of people have thought about is that, you know, communication is really the crux of what glues us together. If we can, we’re really good communicators, where I think this tool can help people who are not naturally good at it. I had a teacher tell me once that she started realizing that her tone in the emails were really off-putting when people were like responding the way they were. And she learned to use the tone factor for GPT. Just having a conversational, empathetic, using tone words helped her realize how to shift her language and to help her get across her message. Her intention was there, but her ability, her skill set was not. So I think that’s an interesting area that may not be one that people think about using to build trust in relationships, but it can if you use it correctly.
Do AI detectors work, and can people tell if AI wrote my email?
Vicki Davis (07:39): Absolutely. And see, asking for feedback is such a great use. I will have one caution that is starting to happen. And we’ve said that AI detectors basically don’t work, but what the kids do is they use ChatGPT and then they may have a humanizer. My students joke, the only people who get caught using AI are the people who don’t understand AI. What I’ve seen some people do is use ChatGPT to craft these beautiful emails that they actually really worked hard to create. But when they copy and paste it and put it in there, and it’s so different from anything they’ve ever done before, parents and students are running it to see if ChatGPT wrote it and basically finding out it did. And then that kind of undermines the person. So the best way to do it, I would just say, is to ask for the feedback and then make the changes yourself to what you wrote. It cuts both ways.
What can calculators teach us about AI in schools?
Vickie Echols (08:23): You know, I think our mindset about using this tool might shift as we use it more often.
Vicki Davis (08:30): It may.
Vickie Echols (08:30): You know, when we talked, when calculators first came out, there were a lot of conversations around how we’re going to lose our ability to, to calculate or to estimate. And certainly that has shifted, I’d say, somewhat because we now have such high power calculators, right? I don’t think that necessarily, like you said, the gotcha attitude works. I think it’s more, what was your intention here? What are you trying to get across and how are you thinking about it? And if I need to write an email in your suggestion And it doesn’t sound like me. I need to train my machine to sound more like that, which is kind of an interesting thing. You can. I just think that’s so cool. And it’s still me.
Vicki Davis (09:17): Yes, that integrity. And then also understanding that sometimes you just need to have a face-to-face conversation. Vickie Echols, the book is AI for School Leaders, 62 Ways to Lighten Your Workload and Focus on What Matters. Vickie, thank you for coming on the show, for sharing your perspectives, and just for this letting me ask the questions that so many of us are asking and for giving such thoughtful answers. Thank you, Vickie.
Vickie Echols (09:43): It’s been a real pleasure.
Announcer (09:44): Thank you for tuning in to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast. Join us here every weekday and subscribe to the Classroom Matters newsletter. See you later, educator.
Vickie F. Echols is a consultant with Wellness for Educators and the author of AI for School Leaders: 62 Ways to Lighten Your Workload and Focus on What Matters (ISTE, 2024). She has spent more than 40 years in PK-20 education as an adjunct professor, campus principal, district director, and public school teacher. She also founded a children’s theater nonprofit. She holds an M.Ed. from James Cook University.
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