It is with great sadness that we announce the passing, on June 1, 2025, of Tech & Learning contributor and former website editor, Gwen Solomon.
In the early days of the Internet, Gwen started the Well Connected Educator website, one of the first online resources to help teachers share ideas and explore innovative ways of using technology to help their students learn and thrive.
A few years later, Gwen joined the Tech & Learning team, merging the Well Connected Educator with the newly launched techlearning.com.
“We had just started techlearning.com, with searchable software reviews and other features designed to tap into the early capabilities of the Internet, and Gwen’s Well Connected Educator site was a wonderful complement,” says Judy Salpeter, former editor of Tech & Learning. “She and I became co-directors of the merged site and had a good time together exploring the potential of the new technology. She had great energy and a lot of enthusiasm and eventually she stepped into the role of director of the whole site.”
Gwen managed techlearning.com for several years, as well as editing custom web sites, writing ebooks and whitepapers, and directing webinars for Tech & Learning, and went on to serve as a contributing writer, most recently focusing on a popular Grant column for the publication.
“Gwen was such a trailblazer,” continues Salpeter. “She came to us with several years of experience in the burgeoning world of edtech and a reputation as somebody who understood the ways in which technology could transform teaching and learning. She added a lot to the T&L team.”
A pioneer in the edtech world, Gwen was the founding director of New York City’s School of the Future, which opened in 1990, ten years after Tech & Learning (first published under the name Classroom Computer News) launched.
Gwen served as a senior analyst in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology during the Clinton administration, where she played a major role in the development of the first National Edtech Plan. Over the course of her career, she wrote or co-authored eight books on educational technology as well as numerous magazine articles.
Former colleagues and friends in the edtech world remember Gwen as a very professional and well-respected connector, innovator, teacher and leader, someone who was bright and resilient, with a positive spirit and multifaceted talent.
In her retirement years, she worked on developing her photography skills. She was featured in several art shows and won awards for her photographs, including her “Backstories” series, in which she photographed interesting New Yorkers from the back, isolating them from their surroundings in a way that left viewers to consider clues about their lives and personalities.
She was a devoted wife and partner to Stan Solomon, who predeceased her; the proud mother of Deborah Solomon, economics editor at the New York Times and former news editor at the Wall Street Journal; and an engaged, loving and fun grandmother to her two grandsons.
As her family wrote in her obituary. “Anyone who knew Gwen knew her as a warm, engaging person, but also someone with incredible strength and resolve. She was a fighter to the end, always looking for ways to prolong her life. She had a huge network of friends that she loved, and cherished her weekly lunches, going to the theater and the symphony, going on walks with coffee as the destination and attending her book clubs. … She will be sorely missed by everyone whose life she touched.”
“As one of the founding members of the Tech & Learning community, Gwen helped launch a mission that we still continue today: to champion the good work of our educators,” says Tech & Learning Brand & Content Director, Christine Weiser. “Gwen passionately continued that mission throughout her life, and she will be missed.”
