Apple Celebrates 25 Years of the Apple Distinguished Educator Program

Apple today celebrated the 25th anniversary of its Apple Distinguished Educator program by sharing a profile of Tennessee Tech University professor Carl Owens, one of more than 3,000 educators from 45 countries who have been part of the program over the years.

Owens, who is retiring at the end of this year after a 40-year career in education, is a professor in Tennessee Tech's College of Education and he has relied on Apple products since the original Macintosh in 1984, including in his classes and the learning resource center he runs.

“Apple cut its teeth in education,” says Owens. “In the beginning, before the iPhone or iPad, Apple was the company that had a computer that enabled educators to become greater than what they ever knew they could be.”

Owens has been provisioning each of his students with an iPad for years and uses Apple products to help teach them how to imagine different and creative ways to approach learning.

Collaboration and remote learning have been an emphasis for Owens over the years, and so he was naturally a key figure at Tennessee Tech when the global health crisis began shutting down campuses around the world.

The Apple Distinguished Educator program fosters an international community of K–12 and higher-education teachers focused on innovation, excellence, and leadership tied into the use of Apple products, and is an application-based program.