You've done the summer PD. You got the certificate and the long slide deck about AI.
Then September came along, and nothing in your week actually changed.
Free workshops teach "AI literacy." University certificates ($1,950–$2,700+) teach policy and integration. Almost no one sits you down and helps you build and ship a real tool you can use in your classrooms.
That's the whole product.
A quick gut-check before you scroll further.
- Have a classroom problem you've never had time to solve
- Have zero coding experience and want to actually build something anyway
- Are tech-curious and want to go beyond prompting ChatGPT
- Already tinker with tools but haven't shipped anything of your own
- You're looking for a general AI literacy overview or policy training
- You want a university-accredited certificate (see the $1,950+ programs for that)
- You're not willing to spend about 3–4 hours per weekend building
Already know how to code a little? Good — you'll go faster and build something more ambitious. The cohort is scaffolded so beginners finish strong and experienced builders don't get held back.
Four build paths — one for every experience level. Non-coders build real tools. Tinkerers build more ambitious ones. Everyone ships.
You'll learn agentic coding — what people online call “vibe coding” — where you describe what you want in plain English and direct the AI to build it for you. All levels of experience are welcome, and everyone will receive hands-on support and mentorship. Every teacher builds at least one classroom tool from scratch and finishes with it working and in use — and most don't stop there. You leave with the skills, and the itch, to keep building long after the cohort ends. Fair warning: it's addictive.
A custom AI chatbot
Good if You want a teaching teammate, not another tab.
This isn't theory. It's what you'll be able to build.
Nine real tools, built by a working teacher and shipped into real classrooms — extensions, web apps, automations, a desktop app. The cohort is how you get from "wouldn't it be cool if" to one of these with your name on it.
your build can hang here too →
Four weekends. Live. Small enough that you can't hide.
Scope it down
Bring a real headache from your classroom. We cut it down to one tool you can actually finish — and pick your build path.
First working version
You build the core with hands-on help. By Sunday it runs — rough, but real.
Make it real
Wire it into your actual workflow — Canvas, Sheets, your students — and test it on real material.
Ship & keep it
Polish, handle the edge cases, put it into use. You leave able to explain exactly how you built it.
The schedule. Four weekends: July 11–12, 18–19, 25–26, and Aug 1–2. Saturday and Sunday, 10:00–11:30 AM ET, live on Zoom. Sessions are recorded for enrolled teachers — but this is a build studio, not a webinar, so plan to be there.
Chris Meehan — your cohort lead
A current high school teacher and active software developer — not a vendor, not a contractor between research deadlines.
A working educator. Currently an AP Environmental Science teacher and Academic Technology Director — still in a building, still in the weeds.
~15 years in Education , M.Sc. in Technology Leadership from Brown University, M.Ed. from Loyola Marymount, B.A. from UCLA, and too many certifications to count.
Classroom hours and dozens of code projects. Tools on the build wall are examples of some of the apps and tools I have built this year.
Watch a build first.
Ten minutes, start to deployed URL — exactly what you'll learn to do.
Serious, but accessible.
University certificates run $1,950–$2,700 and you leave with a PDF. This is $595 and you leave with a working tool in your classroom. The scope is one real thing, finished — on purpose.
- Four weekends, live and online, in a small group
- One (or more) working tool — built from scratch, and yours to keep
- Four build paths, whether or not you code
- An honest completion letter documenting your contact hours
- School group rate for 3+ teachers joining together
- A few need-based / Title-I seats each cohort
- Payment plan available — two payments, just ask
Paying with school PD funds? Common and welcome. We'll send a formal invoice and W-9 for your business office — just note it on the application.
Founding cohort is intentionally small. When it's full, the rate goes to $750.
Apply for the founding cohortPrefer email? hello@secondbellstudio.com
Refunds, plainly: full refund any time before the second weekend. After that, a prorated refund through weekend three. If you show up and build, you won't need this paragraph.
- Faculty build cohorts, run on your calendar
- A plain-English AI policy your community can actually read
- Quarterly “stack audits” — what's in use, what it costs, what's risky
- On-call hours for the things you can't see coming mid-year
Questions, answered straight.
I have zero coding experience. Will I be lost?
No. Most teachers in the cohort start with no programming background. You'll describe what you want in plain English and direct the AI to build it — that's what "agentic coding" means. The first two build paths require no code at all. You'll have hands-on support the entire time.
I already know some code. Will this be too basic?
No. If you have coding experience, you'll take a more ambitious build path — a full application, the kind of tool your school usually buys from a vendor. The cohort is scaffolded so both ends of the experience spectrum finish with something worth shipping.
What if I don't finish in four weekends?
The whole structure is designed to prevent that. We scope your project small and realistic in Weekend 1, and the build paths are calibrated so one working tool is the target. If you need a hand after the cohort ends, you'll have a direct line.
Can my school pay for this? Does it count as PD hours?
Yes to both. You'll receive a completion letter documenting your contact hours, which most schools accept for professional development credit. Group rate for 3+ teachers from the same school, and a few need-based seats each cohort for Title I schools. If your school needs an invoice or a W-9, just ask.
How is this different from a free AI workshop or a university certificate?
Free workshops teach AI literacy — what it is, how to think about it. University certificates ($1,950–$2,700+) teach policy and integration frameworks. Neither sits you down and helps you build a working tool from scratch. That's the gap this fills: you leave with a real, deployed thing you own, not a PDF or a slide deck.
Can I build with real student data?
Not during the cohort — and that's deliberate. Builds run on sample data (we'll help you generate a realistic fake gradebook), because pasting real rosters or grades into consumer AI tools can put you on the wrong side of FERPA and your district's policies. You'll leave knowing the compliant route instead: build and prove the tool on fake data, then take it through your school's approval process to connect anything real. The field manual on student data & the law walks through exactly how — and our privacy policy covers what we collect from you (very little).
The honest part.
we'd rather under-promise.
We won't claim this transforms your students' outcomes.
One working tool. That's the scope — on purpose.
An honest completion letter with your contact hours. That's it.
The deliverable is yours. There's no LMS to log into forever.