Google Gemini introduced a new feature aimed at education called Guided Learning this month. The idea is to teach you something through question-centered conversation instead of a lecture.
When you ask it to teach you something, it breaks the topic down and begins to ask you questions about it. Based on your answers, it explains more details and asks another question. The feature provides visuals, quizzes and even embedes YouTube videos to help you absorb knowledge.
As a test, I asked Geminis Socratic Tutor to teach me all about cheese. It started by asking me what I think is in cheese, managed my somewhat vague answer with more details and then asked if I knew how these ingredients are becoming cheese. Soon I was in a fully blown cheese seminar. For every answer I gave, Gemini came back with more details or in a gentle way told me I was wrong.
Ai then entered the cheese story. It framed the story as a story of traveling shepherds, clay pots, old salt and Egyptian tombs with cheese. It showed a visual timeline and said, “Which one of these surprises you the most?” I said the tombs did it and it said, “Right? They found cheese in a grave and it had survived.” Which is terrible and also makes me respect cheese at a deeper level.
In about 15 minutes I knew everything about curd and whey, the story of a few regional cheese traditions, and even how to choose the best examples of different cheeses. I could sometimes watch photos and a video trip in a basement full of expensive cheese wheels in France. Ai asked me when I asked it to make sure I got it and I scored one ten out of ten.
Cheesemongs AI
It didn’t feel like studying exactly. More like falling in a conversation where the other person knows everything about dairy and is happy to bring you on the trip. After learning about caseinmicelles. Starter cultures and cut the curd asked Gemini if I would learn to make cheese.
I certainly said, and it led me through the process of making ricotta, including images to help show what it should look like at each step.
When I finished that part of the conversation, I felt I had taken a mini -course in the cheese machine. I’m not sure I’m ready to fill a whole cheeseboard or age a wheel with gruyère in my basement.
Still, I think making ricotta or maybe paneer would be a fun activity in the next few weeks. And I can show a mild, wobbly ball of dairy -stoleness thanks to learning from questioning and as it was led to an education.
