Coding and Design with TURKISHKIT

The "Design" and "Coding" workshop took place with the the partnership​ of the TurkishKit team on December 21-22, at TED Izmir College. Participants were from Izmir, Istanbul, Afyon, Ankara cities, and consisting of the university, high school, and middle school students. They met with Apple technologies and experienced Sketch, Swift, Xcode applications. This way, they also had the opportunity to develop important skills such as collaborative work, design thinking and problem solving.

Before the workshop, we were very excited that we were going to partner with the TurkishKit team for the first time in an event. I had never had the opportunity to meet the members of the team before but we had a lot of common shares on phone and FaceTime conversations. It was a strong sign that we would do a good job even before we meet. Emirhan Erdogan, the founder of TurkishKit, was closely involved in all the details, from the selection of the event area to the location and logistics. Everyone cared that everything was beautiful and special. And that's what happened!

"Design Day"
Saturday, December 21, "Design Day" theme of the event that started with a pleasant introduction by Emirhan Erdoğan and breakfast "Meet WWDC" presentation excited the participants. At THE WWDC organized by Apple, the adventures from the application stage to the end of the event were inspired by the effective presentation of Sergen Gönenç and Can Demir, who were invited by Apple on a scholarship covering their travel and accommodation costs. The event continued with the presentation of "Design Oriented Thinking", participants discovered the solution-oriented mindset of being able to produce extraordinary, creative solutions to the problems experienced in everyday life and design. The presentation, presented by Sherpa/UX-UI Designer Orkun Duyar and Sherpa/UX Designer Serkan Dogan, opened new horizons for different looking and designing differently.

Orkun Duyar and Serkan Doğan, who explained and applied "Draw Your Apple Watch App," "Basic Design and Sketch," "Design with Sketch," and "Instagram with Sketch", also developed participants' problem-solving, design development and collaborative working skills in event scenarios.


​“Coding Day”
On Sunday, December 22nd, the second day with TurkishKit started with a wonderful breakfast that was organized by our school, TED İzmir College. The first session was about "Technology Has a Language: Coding". With the delightful narration of Can Demir -director of the TurkishKit blog-, participants discovered the perfect relationship between technology and code. They understood the importance of coding ideas, introduction to the Playground development environment, and writing code that others could understand. In the Swift Basics session, they experienced the concepts of "fixed and variable" by applying the function of a control mechanism in code and the "if-else" structure that controls states. The event, organized by TurkishKit content generator Sergen Gönenç, took the participants' coding skills to the next level.

The perfect duo: In the Series & Loops session, they experienced how they can create sequences, and how repetitive loops work, holding multiple objects together. The session, which was held by TurkishKit content generator Berk Turan, was an important step for participants who wanted to improve the application. Designed on a design day, the Instagram posts, encoding in an interactive Playground environment, and the session where they can personalize their posts were performed by TurkishKit Instructor Rana Taki. After about three-and-a-half-hour long session, users designed their own Instagram posts.

As TED Izmir College, we are proud to host this important study. The event taught participants about coding and design, while contributing to the development of his skills such as problem-solving, working as a team, sharing and being solution-oriented, which are all essential 21st-century skills. Thank you so much to the TurkishKit team and everyone who has supported it. 

Special thanks to Carlos Susin for the amazing pictures...