TVO's Best Lecturer Competition celebrates the most engaging lecturers in Ontario.

The competition, sponsored by TD Insurance Meloche Monnex, allows anyone to nominate a professor in any Ontario registered post-secondary institution.

TVO staff and an independent jury review the submission videos to select 10 finalists. The lectures of the top 10 will air on TVO in March 2010. The winning lecturer is chosen by viewers and a panel of judges, and the winner's school is awarded a $10,000 TD Insurance Meloche Monnex scholarship.

Top 10 Announced

Congratulations to the top 10 finalists for the 2010 competition.

Click here to see the list and here to see the broadcast schedule for the Top 10.

After each lecture, submit your grades for the professor. You will be able to do this online at tvo.org/bigideas or by calling toll free at 1-877-792-VOTE (8683). As well, starting at 8 am on Tuesday, April 6 until 8 pm on Sunday, April 11 you'll be able to submit grades for any, or all, of this year's finalists.

Vote online and enter into a draw to win the grand prize for a $5000 digital prize pack, sponsored by TD Insurance Meloche Monnex.

The prize pack includes:

• laptop;
• HD camcorder;
• digital SLR still camera;
• iPod touch;
• iTunes gift card.

We'll also be giving away one portable digital reader for each week of voting beginning March 6.

Stay up to date on the competition by following us on Facebook and Twitter.

If you have any questions, email us at bl@tvo.org.




The 2010 Best Lecturer Competition Jury are:

Teacher, trainer, television producer and host, and mother, Linda Armstrong has always been busy doing all things educational. She knows how hard it is to reach out and attract an audience of learners and capture their imagination. As an educator, she has motivated sleepy first-year college students, unfocused kindergarten children, adults tuning into a how-to television show, and her own reluctant readers at home.

Linda started her working life as an elementary and special education teacher then moved into educational television. Her career at TVOntario spanned 16 years as a producer, director, and host of numerous programs for educators and parents including Inside Education, More to Life and Get Ready to Learn and the web site, TVO Parent Break. At the same time, she wrote and hosted Cottage Life Television, an informative lifestyle show that touched the lives of lake-loving vacationers for 13 seasons. She has also dabbled as a college lecturer at Seneca at York in their Communications and Advertising program.

Currently, Linda is an international trainer for the award-winning peace program, Roots of Empathy and a presenter with the popular Scientists in School initiative for elementary school children. When not in a classroom Linda can be found shuttling her kids around Toronto or traveling out of town for a well-deserved break from reality.


Jesse Brown is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast, which explores the impact of the Internet on politics and culture.

His satiric voice was first heard by Canadians on The Contrarians, a national public radio show "about unpopular ideas that just might be right". As a print journalist Jesse received a National Magazine Award for humour for his magazine column "The Experiment" which ran for two years in Saturday Night magazine. He has also written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and Vice Magazine.

Jesse is a co-founder of the user-generated comic strip websites Bitstrips and Bitstrips for Schools, which have been described by Wired Magazine as "awesome!"


dubzz/poet/at/large! Clifton Joseph is a Toronto-based poet and journalist who has written for newspapers, magazines, radio and television including the Toronto Star, the Globe & Mail, Toronto Life, ckln, ciut, ctv, cbc and tvo, most recently with cbc tv's The National.

A founding member of the dub poetry movement in Canada, as a poet, he has toured Canada and internationally and has released albums, videos and a book of poetry.

Joseph has had a number of nods for his works over the years including Juno and CASBY nominations, two Gemini Awards, a Freddies, a New York TV Festival Award and a Silver Fleece Award from the Chicago International Film Festival.