Human Agency First: Educators as Co-Designers of Educational AI Tools

This contribution presents a conceptual and design-based proposal for involving educators and students in the participatory design of generative AI tools, with human agency at its core. Grounded in Laurillard's Conversational Framework, the approach proposes co-designing philosopher-inspired custom GPT assistants, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, to support critical dialogue, perspective-taking, ethical reflection, and AI literacy. The proposed learning experience follows six stages: acquisition, inquiry, discussion, collaboration, practice, and production. Socrates 3.0 serves as an initial prototype for exploring the pedagogical possibilities and limitations of these assistants. Rather than positioning AI as a replacement for teaching, the proposal emphasizes educators' roles as designers, curators, and guardians of AI-mediated learning environments.