Featured Speakers

Laurie Barron

Dr. Laurie Barron is co-author of publications including and not limited to, The Successful Middle School: A Place to Belong and Become (AMLE, 2024) and We Belong: 50 Strategies to Create Community and Revolutionize Classroom Management (ASCD, 2021). Following a nine year tenure as middle school principal, Laurie currently serves as superintendent of the Evergreen School District in Kalispell, Montana. Laurie holds degrees from the University of Georgia, University of West Georgia, and University of Sarasota, studied at Oxford, and is a National Board Certified, multi-award-winning educator, including the 2013 National Middle School Principal of the Year. In 2022, Barron was honored with the Distinguished Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Georgia College of Education.

You can connect with Laurie through email at lauriebarron18@gmail.com.

Pernille Ripp

Since Pernille Ripp was a child growing up in Denmark, she knew she wanted to work with kids. She has loved being a 4th, 5th, and then 7th-grade teacher in the American public school system, as well as a literacy coach for adults.  In her co-created teaching spaces, students’ identities are at the center of the explorations that they do, as well as considering how to fight for change.  

Recently, Pernille moved home to Denmark where she is expanding her knowledge about children’s development and needs through her work in early childhood education.  

She is an international speaker and educator developer, working with educators in need to better learning conditions, literacy instruction, and overall school experiences for children and adults on a global plane.   She is also the founder of The Global Read Aloud which has connected millions of students in more than 85 countries. She believes in having the courage to change and even break the rules for the good of kids and education. Besides being with her own family, there is no place she would rather be than standing alongside children and educators fighting for change in the world.   

You can find her across social media platforms easily.

Matt Pinkett

Matt Pinkett is a teacher, author and educational consultant recognised as one of the UK’s leading voices on masculinity, misogyny and boys’ education. He is the author of three books published by Routledge, including his latest, Unmasking the Manosphere, and has advised parliamentarians on policy responses to male radicalisation and misogyny in schools. Matt has appeared on BBC, Channel 4 and ITV, and written for the Guardian and the Times, bringing rigorous, evidence-informed thinking to one of education’s most urgent challenges. A sought-after keynote speaker, he works with schools, universities and organisations across the UK and internationally, helping educators understand and respond to the crisis of masculinity shaping boys’ lives and classrooms today.

Joe Dale 

Joe Dale is an independent languages consultant from the UK who works with a range of organisations such as Network for Languages, ALL, The British Council, the BBC, Skype, Microsoft and The Guardian. He was host of the TES MFL forum for six years, former SSAT Languages Lead Practitioner, a regular conference speaker and recognised expert on technology and language learning. He has spoken at conferences and run training courses in Europe, North America, South America, the Middle East, the Far East and Australasia. He was a member of the Ministerial Steering Group on languages for the UK coalition government and advised on the Linguanet Worldwide project for The Language Company. He created ICT activities for the new Institut Français, ALL and Network for Languages Primary French Project Niveau Bleu, Blanc and Rouge courses and was short-listed for a NAACE Impact Award in 2013 too. Joe supported the Erasmus Plus project Conflict to Cooperation with 5 European countries and the Erasmus Plus Project Learning to think and live outside the box. He recently organised and co-hosted a 10 part series of webinars Saturday Tech-Talk in collaboration with the British Council in Indonesia and iTELL and worked on the Nusantara Go project for the British Council in Indonesia and PearTree Languages in 2022. He also worked on the Supporting Schools Reform in Algeria project through the British Council 2019-2020. He is currently the AI Project Lead for the National Consortium for Languages Education (NCLE) and in February 2026, delivered a 1.5 day workshop 'Integrating AI into Teaching, Learning and Supervision - A Practical, Ethical Approach for Egyptian Schools' for the British Council Egypt. In March 2026, He ran a whole day pre-conference workshop 'From Planning to Practice: AI Workflows for Bilingual and Language Classrooms' for the 21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong as well as speak in the main programme. He was recently described in a Guardian article as an ‘MFL guru’ and ‘the man behind the #mfltwitterati.’. Joe’s new Facebook group, ‘Language Teaching with AI already has over 6500 members!