"Framing Giftedness:
From Policy to Practice"

Gifted community celebrate! Gifted education has been identified as a national priority by the Federal Government. The commonwealth has contributed $3.2 million "to assist teacher educators and classroom teachers to support gifted and talented education".

Educators, families and community groups have a critical role in supporting the learning and development of our gifted students. With the launch of Education Queensland's "Framework for Gifted Education", it is time to move beyond policy and implement strategies to support gifted students. The conference will celebrate the unique qualities of gifted children and provide opportunities for educators and parents of gifted children to develop and implement excellence through best teaching and learning practices.

Keynote speaker Saturday - Linda Silverman Ph.D.

Linda Kreger Silverman, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist. She directs the Institute for the Study of Advanced Development, and its subsidiaries, the Gifted Development Center (www.gifteddevelopment.com), and Visual-Spatial Resource (www.visualspatial.org), in Denver, Colorado. Over 4,500 children have been assessed at the Gifted Development Center in the last 25 years. Her Ph.D. is in educational psychology and special education from the University of Southern California. For nine years, she served on the faculty of the University of Denver in counseling psychology and gifted education. Her textbook, Counseling the Gifted and Talented (Love: 1993), is the most popular text in this area; it has been adopted at more than 50 colleges and universities. Her book, Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner, was released November, 2002. She founded the only journal on adult giftedness, Advanced Development. Currently, she is conducting research on profoundly gifted children, the visual-spatial learner, comparative assessment of the gifted on different instruments, the effects of vision therapy and introversion. Linda has been studying the assessment, psychology and education of the gifted since 1961 and she has written over 300 articles, chapters and books in this field.

Keynote speaker Sunday - Tony Ryan

A former teacher, Tony Ryan is a prolific author of manuals and books on effective thinking and learning, with titles such as 'Thinkers Keys for Kids', 'Mindlinks' and 'Brainstorms' to his credit. He also has written two general market books called 'Wrapped in Living' and 'The Ripple Effect'.
Tony offers professional support to educational organisations throughout Australia on issues such as change management, lifelong learning and productive pedagogies. He is a sought-after public speaker, and has presented keynotes and workshops at state, Australian and world conferences.
With his wife Sharon, he has formed an Australian non-profit foundation called 'Kids Who Make A Difference', which helps teachers and students around Australia to make practical connections with charity and volunteer groups (see www.kidswhomakeadifference.org).