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Wednesday, June 17, 2026 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm EDT
Presented by Dan Be Kim, AI Fellow and Translational Research Designer, Center for Digital Thriving, Harvard Graduate School of Education; and Dr. Carrie James, Co-Founder and Co-Director, Center for Digital Thriving, and Co-Director, Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Sponsored by Center for Digital Thriving at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
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As debates about the role of generative AI in the classroom carry on, some schools are responding with an emphasis on bans, detection tools, and compliance policies. What if we focused instead on empowering students to navigate an AI world well? The research team at the Center for Digital Thriving (CDT) at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education, engages in an intentional listening practice with young people to co-design relevant resources and tools that help them navigate a world increasingly shaped by AI with a sense of agency.
In this edWebinar, CDT presenters Dr. Carrie James and Dan Be Kim will explore how educators can support AI agency among their students—right now. They’ll share relevant resources and four enduring mindshifts that are game changing for classroom conversations about tech:
- From Abstinence to Agency: Bans often push AI and other tech use underground; teaching agency prepares students for real-world decisions.
- From Referee to Coach: While AI may feel new and unfamiliar, it’s also an amplifier of familiar human pressures around performance, fairness, and belonging. This framing changes what good guidance looks like. Educators don’t need to be AI experts to guide students through gray areas.
- From Assuming to Asking: We can better understand the “whys” behind students’ uses of AI when we shift from assuming all AI use is about cheating and, instead, ask open questions. Understanding paves the way for better, more relevant support.
- From Us vs. Them to Us and Them: Making AI uses and dilemmas visible through open dialogue with students and colleagues can help us begin to co-create norms of use.
Grounded in CDT’s youth voice work, these mindshifts and resources are designed to endure by emphasizing student skill and agency building over tool management. The tech may keep evolving, but with the right mindshifts, so can we. This edWebinar will be of interest to elementary through high school teachers, librarians, school leaders, district leaders, and education technology leaders.
About the Presenters
Dan Be Kim is an AI Fellow and translational research designer at the Center for Digital Thriving at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she helps translate emerging research insights into professional development programs and frameworks that support responsible AI use in education. A self-proclaimed AI tinkerer, she is deeply curious about how technology shapes culture and identity—a question informed by her own experience as a third-culture kid shaped by Korea, India, and Germany. Dan Be is a core contributor to CDT’s IMAGINE AI project, which brings a values-centered lens to AI by asking how lived experiences and moral compasses shape what we consider responsible use. She is also an AI Fellow at Harvard GSE, helping onboard graduate students to leverage AI responsibly in their academic and professional work. Dan Be loves bringing people together across sectors and co-designed and co-taught AI Tools for Learning Design, a mini-course bringing educators, technologists, and designers in the community to experiment with AI for immersive learning.
Dr. Carrie James is a sociologist, researcher, the current Co-director of Project Zero, and the Co-founder of the Center for Digital Thriving. Her work focuses on young people’s digital experiences, including opportunities and challenges for their well-being, social connections, and civic lives. She loves to translate research insights into practical tools and wisdom for families and educators. With Emily Weinstein, Dr. James is the co-author of the book Behind Their Screens: What Teens Are Facing (And Adults Are Missing), which details compelling insights from thousands of teens. She is also the author of Disconnected: Youth, New Media, and the Ethics Gap (MIT Press, 2014). Her perspectives have appeared in diverse outlets, including The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, TIME Magazine, The New York Times, TechCrunch, and The Washington Post. Dr. James has a Ph.D. in sociology from New York University and is a parent to two technology-loving daughters.
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Center for Digital Thriving (CDT) is a research and innovation center based at Project Zero at Harvard Graduate School of Education. We create knowledge- and research-based resources that help youth thrive in a tech-filled world—and we believe educators are essential partners in making that possible.
