February 21, 1999
Dr. Jan Hawkins, an Expert on Using Computers in Schools, Is Dead at 47
By WOLFGANG SAXON
NEW YORK -- Dr. Jan Hawkins, a pioneer in the use of computers and other technology in education, died Feb. 9 at New York Presbyterian Hospital. She was 47 and lived in Cambridge, Mass., and in Manhattan.
The cause was breast cancer, her family said.
Before joining the education faculty at Harvard University in September, Hawkins established her reputation through her work as director of the Center for Children and Technology, an agency founded in 1981 by the Bank Street College of Education in New York. Hawkins joined the group that year, long before computers had become an integral part of education.
"She worked to find the mutual fit needed so technology could work in an educational setting," said Dr. Howard Gardner, a colleague of Dr. Hawkins' at Harvard.
Hawkins was often called upon for help and advice by school districts, museums and other educational institutions looking for ways to integrate computers into their programs.
"She was the one person that everyone went to," Gardner said.
In her first studies during the early 1980s, she showed that children, especially girls, used computers in sociable and collaborative ways, not in isolation as critics had feared, said Dr. Margaret Honey, a longtime colleague of Hawkins' at the center.
In 1994, the Center for Children and Technology became a division of the Education Development Center, based in Newton, Mass. Dr. Hawkins became a vice president of that association, which, like the Center for Children and Technology, is a nonprofit research and development group financed by grants and contracts with foundations and government institutions.
Jan Hawkins was born in New Canaan, Conn., and received her bachelor's degree in psychology and English from Tufts University in 1973. She received a master's degree in psychology and a doctorate in developmental psychology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 1987.
She belonged to numerous boards and advisory groups in her field. She was an editor of professional journals and at Cambridge University Press, dealing with its "Learning by Doing" series.
Dr. Hawkins is survived by her parents, John and Francette Hawkins of Mountain View, Calif.; two sisters, Kim Hawkins of Cleveland and Cynthia Rahilly of Manhattan; a brother, John Hawkins of Virginia Beach, Va., and her fiance, Rand Spiro of East Lansing, Mich.