I am interested in the latest tech and decided today to play around with Google’s new Nano Banana Pro, which is the top of the shelf (for now) AI image generator. Since it landed a few days ago, there are a lot of YouTubers showing off the potential use cases.

The first image I worked on was a simple, but custom infographic comparing the New Deal and the Great Society for my AP Gov class. Students are working in pairs to conduct the initial reasearch, but I wanted a visual for our review. I’m pleased with the results, but not blown away.

I then decided to see if I could get a picture of FDR and LBJ in the front of my classroom so I could include it on our next daily agenda. I uploaded a photo of the front of my room. Unfortunately, it couldn’t handle my request. For one, it couldn’t use the photo I uploaded. Instead the image it created used a made up, generic classroom. Secondly, it wouldn’t make images of FDR or LBJ since they are ‘public figures.’ Disappointing, but understandable.

Finally, I asked Nano Banana Pro to make a timeline infographic of 10 major uprisings in American History (we are about to have a Socratic seminar on an essay about Nat Turner). It did an alright job, but included two of the events twice. I asked it again to remake the infographic without the duplications and it duplicated _all _the events. Very disappointing. It makes me wonder how much the YouTube influencers are getting paid by Google to promote a product that isn’t quite as good as advertised. Even if they aren’t paying them, surely they are boosting the algorithm (since they own both YouTube and Nano Banana). Needless to say, I don’t imagine using this tool much in the near future.