EDUCATORS AND YOUTH NEED AI AGENCY TO THRIVE.
Imagine AI is CDT’s portfolio of work on AI in education, designed for educators navigating the messy realities of technology in schools. Many programs stop at skills or compliance. Imagine AI goes a step further by approaching AI as part of the human experience — full of questions, emotions, and opportunities. It acknowledges what’s really going on: educators are refereeing a game they are still learning how to play.
Through playful tinkering, reflective frameworks, and co-designed tools, we foster critical optimism, curiosity, and shared discovery with students toward AI agency and digital thriving.
Which AI uses are fine? And which ones cross a line?
Try Align on the Line to make AI thinking visible and navigate gray areas with your students — shifting from strict rules to shared agreements that build AI agency.
Agency-Centered Framework
Our Agency-Centered Framework for AI Literacy goes beyond just understanding how AI works. It helps educators and students explore three key areas: the tools themselves, the market forces driving them, and ourselves (what we value and what we want). Building on Albert Bandura’s modes of human agency (individual, collective, and proxy), the framework supports a critically optimistic stance: one that acknowledges both AI’s real risks and its genuine potential. It’s about developing the agency to navigate this AI-transformed world, not just as users but as shapers of what comes next.
| Individual Agency (You act directly) | Collective Agency (We act together) | Proxy Agency (Others act for you/us) | |
| Literacy of Technology | Understanding AI tools; knowing when and how to use them. | Being transparent about AI use, tinkering together. | Understanding what happens when AI acts for you. |
| Literacy of Market Forces | Knowing what data AI collects about you, how it influences you, and the hidden costs of each query. | Advocating for AI that’s accessible, safe, and built without exploiting people or the planet. | Recognizing hidden incentives in AI assistants and platform settings. |
| Literacy of Yourself | Knowing your values, goals, and moral compass. | Building shared values and community norms around AI use. | Keeping your own judgment strong, avoicing skill loss and over-dependence. |
This resource was created by the Center for Digital Thriving at Harvard Graduate School of Education. It was made possible through the support of Grant 63220 from the John Templeton Foundation. It has a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Remixing is encouraged! Suggested attribution: Tench, B. (2025) Agency-Centered Framework for AI Literacy (Working Draft). Cambridge, MA: Center for Digital Thriving.
CLASSROOM TOOLS
Our signature set of co-designed activities helps educators and students explore AI together. Each activity can stand on its own — or be used in sequence as a four-step journey: ground in values, surface hidden use, navigate gray areas, and reflect on the experience. Choose your own adventure or try them together!
Ground in what matters
Values Drawbridge
Help students connect personal values to real-world questions of how to practice AI use that reflects what matters most to them.
COMING SOON!
Give voice to hidden use
Hushy Discusshy + Secret Cyborgs
Prompts open conversations about when, why, and how students might feel pressure to hide their AI use (aka to be “secret cyborgs”)— and helps destigmatize use bringing it into the open.
COMING SOON!
Navigate gray areas
Align on the Line
Invites the class to surface the ethically gray areas of generative AI by mapping which uses feel okay, uncertain, or cross a line for a certain assignment.
Reflect on AI experiences
Accordion Mapping
Supports reflection on AI use by expressing not just how it was used, but how it felt and what was learned along the way.
COMING SOON!
PD + COMMUNITY
AI doesn’t have to be learned alone. We create spaces where educators can tinker, reflect, and share together.
AI Explorers’ Club
An emerging professional development experience for AI-curious educators rooted in a pedagogy of sharing, exploration, and play.
Your AI journey doesn’t have to be a solo trek — it’s best taken together. With this immersive PD experience, you’ll explore how AI can foster creativity, character development, and digital agency. Through reflection, tinkering, and co-design, you’ll leave with fresh perspectives and practical classroom tools.
→ learn MORE ABOUT AI EXPLORERS’
TINKER TIME FEST
A hands-on, energizing space to explore AI together.
Join fellow educators for a collaborative session led by our resident AI Tinkerer, Dan Be. You’ll experiment with tools in real time, take on creative challenges, and swap tips and ideas with peers. Think of it as playtime with purpose — a chance to explore, make, and reflect in community.
→ GET NOTIFIED ABOUT THE NEXT SESSION
Participatory Design Workshops
Imagining the future of AI in schools together.
Too often, conversations about AI in education stop at cheating and compliance. Our participatory design workshops bring educators, researchers, and youth together to reimagine how AI can support thriving. Across multiple days of collaborative exploration, we co-design frameworks, resources, and practices that reflect the needs and values of real school communities.
→ LEARN ABOUT Our PARTICIPATORY design approach
Watch + Learn: AI in Action
Explore our library of bite-sized videos with CDT’s Dan Be Kim — self-proclaimed AI Tinkerer — for a deeper dive on Generative AI tools and how you might use them in your AI practice.
Educator Spotlight
GINGER’S STORY
Hear one teacher’s candid journey experimenting with AI in the classroom — the surprises, challenges, and possibilities she’s discovering.
AI Basics: What Every Educator Should Know
What Does ChatGPT Stand For — and Why Does It Matter?
A quick primer on the tool behind the headlines and why educators should care.
What’s Distinct About This Generation of AI?
Understand what makes today’s AI tools different from earlier tech shifts.
What Can’t Generative AI Do (Yet)?
Yes, AI can do a lot. But, it helps to be aware of its limitations, too.
LIVE DEMOS WITH AN EDUCATOR
Anticipating Student Questions with AI
Watch a demo walking an educator through ways to use AI to sure up her lesson plan.
Building a Tool with AI
Watch how AI can help create a classroom resource or activity from scratch.
Creative Tinkering with AI
Creative Gear: Gamma.app, Leonardo.ai, ElevenLabs
Explore how AI tools can generate presentations, art, and voices in minutes.
Creative Gear: Doodle to Animation with Pika.art
See how a simple sketch can become a moving animation with AI.
RESEARCH + INSIGHTS
We listen to youth and educators — then translate what we learn into usable insights and tools. Here’s a look at what we’re hearing, sharing, and planning next.
Youth Advisory Memo: Ten Fresh Insights on Generative AI
Hear directly from our youth advisors about how AI is showing up in their lives — from school and mental health to fashion, friendship, and beyond.
Teen and Young Adult Perspectives on Generative AI
Developed in collaboration with Hopelab and Common Sense Media, this report explores what teens want adults to know about how they’re using generative AI.
CDT Joins the Search Engine Podcast to Talk Homework + AI
Could AI reshape homework and school to be more interesting, meaningful, and joyful? Beck Tench and Emily Weinstein unpack how CDT is centering youth voices in the AI + homework debate — and how our new framework, Align on the Line (formerly Gradients), can help.
Vatican Remarks: Youth and Generative AI — When Design and Development Collide
Emily Weinstein shares her remarks at a global convening about children and AI hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the World Childhood Foundation.
Why We Need to Talk About AI Use in School — and What Happens When We Do
Where do you draw the line with AI in schools? In this presentation, Emily Weinstein and Beck Tench share timely AI dilemmas and introduce Align on the Line, a framework co-created with educators and students to guide AI decisions together.
COMING SOON! School AI Policy Landscape Study
Our forthcoming report captures what educators are saying about AI policies in schools today — what’s missing, what’s working, and how guidance can better support real teaching and learning needs.
WhY NOW?
Students are already among the largest users of generative AI, yet most schools still lack clear policies. Educators are expected to lead while they themselves are still learning. Both feel like they must hide their AI use.
Without guidance, assumptions fill the void. Too often, AI is framed only as a shortcut or a threat, overlooking the genuine support young people seek from these tools — and the pressures they face to keep up.
Imagine AI meets this moment by destigmatizing AI, centering youth and educator voices, and creating practical resources that make AI use visible, values-driven, and open to reflection.
This project / publication was made possible through the support of Grant 63220 from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.