Great educators have an enormous influence in our lives. I’ll never forget how my favorite high school teacher influenced the college major I selected. And how his energy and enthusiasm for the class made it fun to be there.

PBS is honoring America’s best educators with a contest called the Teachers Innovation Awards that showcases how teachers inspire and engage their students in new and creative ways. Entrants are demonstrating how they bring the curriculum to life by submitting user-generated photo and video for a shot at a number of prizes. PBS is using VMIX to accept, manage and publish the content.

The contest runs January 25th through March 12th. Winners will be announced April 5, 2010 and winning entries will be featured on the PBS Teachers web site. If you know an educator that deserves some recognition, encourage them to enter or help them out with a submission. I don’t know about you, but I’m hoping to see some outside the box ideas that make we wish I was back in school again.