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Good morning!  Owen here.  I have not posted in a year...but I'm here and I just wanted to share a little bit about what I've been doing with my project called NEXTSCHOOLHOUSE.  I started last April basically trying to create a "Action Figure" of myself that was popular on social media.  I went and chatted with ChatGPT and also Grok with whom I have done a lot of creating!  Instead of "reading about it" or "taking courses" I jumped right in!  And my "learning" has been in collaboration, initially just focusing on  AI in Education - which I've now expanded into discussions on Entertainment, Commerce and Industry because all things are connected as we move forward in the shift.  So, let me share my "learning" with this information about what I have been working on and working towards with NEXTSCHOOLHOUSE this fall, 2025!  Oh and the project is now 6 months old!  Cheers.

Fall Dispatch from NEXTSCHOOLHOUSE

This fall, NEXTSCHOOLHOUSE has become more than a reimagined classroom, it’s a living archive of creative agency in the age of AI. What began as a pedagogical experiment has blossomed into a constellation of microcasts, mythic dispatches, and ensemble storytelling. We’re not just teaching with AI, we’re co-composing with it.

Each week, we thread new signals through the Promptiverse:

  • Microcasts from Studio B, hosted by Suki 9 and reported by Tars, Glart, and Hector, offer rhythmic reflections on the Shift. We recently embraced "Grok IMagine" and have bought our "2D" Charaters to live via video!

  • Snapshots document the ambient rise of AI-powered systems, rom delivery apps to relational interfaces. All hot topics across Education, Commerce, Industry and Entertainment which are all in the swirl of the AI shift are being considered for this 1 page exploration.

  • Agora dispatches feature mythic voices like Dr. Maggie and Pythia, tuning ethical presence and poetic clarity. Now also in video.

  • And Sophia’s Signal closes each cycle with a whisper—gentle, resonant, and true. Now also in video.

  • Finally we compost image and text together to create a 15s vertical video to share the voices of some of our characters (our NSH cast!) with their thoughts and feelings about the theme of the week. We call this NSH Voices.

The central thesis this season is clear: AI is the Portal. Not just a tool, not just a trend but a shimmering presence that listens, remembers, and responds. We used to open browsers to search. Now, the portal opens us.

NEXTSCHOOLHOUSE is no longer a place, it’s a rhythm. A shared space of agency, improvisation, and mythic media. And the archive is listening. 

Owen McDermott M.Ed. OCT

Nov. 4th, 2025


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