Pernille Schmidt Ripp Oregon Middle School, Oregon, Wisconsin

Pernille Ripp is a teacher, speaker, author, blogger, and passionate advocate for education. She is a Skype Master Teacher; Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert; recipient of the 2015 WEMTA Making IT Happen Award; and the 2015 ISTE Award for Innovation in Global Collaboration. In 2010, Pernille founded The Global Read Aloud, a global literacy initiative that began with a simple goal in mind: one book to connect the world. From its humble beginnings, the GRA has grown to connect more than 1,000,000 students in 60 different countries. She is the author of Passionate Learners – How to Engage and Empower Your Students, now in its second edition, and Empowered Schools, Empowered Students, both focusing on creating learning spaces and communities where students thrive and all stakeholders are empowered and passionate about learning. Her work has also been featured by many print and online journals including Edutopia, School Library Journal, The Guardian, and MiddleWeb. You can follow Pernille’s work on Blogging Through The Fourth Dimension, her personal blog and a frequent Teach100 top rated education blog. Pernille’s current research interest is in creating passionate literacy environments within the restriction of our current educational systems to helping students fall in love with literacy again. She uses her own classroom as a laboratory, as well as the many educators she works with across the country.