User:Marynz/World Gifted & Talented Awareness Day

The Event
The inaugural World Gifted & Talented Awareness Day was announced in March 2011, to be held on 9 August 2011. This falls on the second day of the 19th Biennial World Conference of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children. It is a sign of the increasing international connectedness of the gifted education and advocacy community across a variety of social media platforms, that the World Gifted & Talented Awareness Day was first announced via Facebook:

"WORLD GIFTED & TALENTED AWARENESS DAY-- Following the Success of the EU Talent Day taking place this weekend (Sat. April 9th), which gave rise to the subsequent establishment of a National Gifted and Talented Awareness Day in Ireland (April the 8th), along with the sharing of information on/of other, similar initiatives established in a good number of other countries around the world; the support in numbers shown from this community for a call for a World Gifted & Talented Awarness Day, has led to a positive outcome. I am pleased to announce that the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children (WCGTC) has decided to support this call by establishing an official WORLD GIFTED & TALENTED AWARENESS DAY. This year it will take place on the second day of the WCGTC conference in Prague, or the 9th of August. Details will follow in due course."

History
The call for a global awareness event in connection with gifted education and advocacy arose largely from online discussions. The announcement of the inaugural World Gifted & Talented Awareness Day by the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children was made as a response to these discussions. This has been deemed as an important development by people involved in online discussions of giftedness, who are interested in the impact of social media on policy, practice and advocacy.

Related Events
The World Gifted & Talented Awareness Day aims to extend the success and impact of other gifted awareness events, including New Zealand Gifted Awareness Week, National Gifted Education Awareness Day in Ireland, and EU Talent Day. These events have raised awareness of the needs of gifted children, and of the services and provisions that are needed or that are available to meet these needs. Some existing gifted awareness events have also had success in gaining acknowledgement from governments or individual elected representatives. EU Talent Day 2011 has sought to extend Hungary's support of talent development into EU policy.

Activities
The lead-up to the World Gifted & Talented Awareness Day includes an international gifted education photoquotes campaign inspired by a similar campaign in the Purpose Education movement. This campaign involves creating an image bank showcasing quotations that succinctly explain the importance of key concepts within gifted education. Images have Creative Commons licenses so that they can be used widely by people advocating for more appropriate educational provision for gifted and talented children.