Near East Junior College participated in Code Week 4 All Challenge that is supported by the European Commission and received a Certificate of Excellence. It was announced that Code Week 4 All Challenge was launched in 2013 by the Young Advisors for the Digital Agenda Europa and the European Commission supported the event as part of its strategy for a Digital Single Market.
According to the information release provided by the Near East Junior College, Code Week 4 All Challenge was annually organised and via coding, problem-solving and coordination skills were nurtured. Recently, Near East Junior College participated in the event through robotic activities related to real life and was awarded a Certificate of Excellence.
Providing further details regarding the event, it was stated that the event was organised as an initiative aimed at making coding and digital literacy fun and attractive. Moreover, it was stated that it was necessary to fulfil one of the three criteria determined so as to be awarded the Certificate of Excellence. However, it was proudly stated that the Near East Junior College had met all three of the criteria and became the only institution in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus to be awarded the Certificate of Excellence in the field of robotic coding education.
Met all three of the criteria…
To obtain a certificate, Near East Junior College met all the criteria which were to achieve the 10 coding events required, to ensure active participation of 500 students in coding activities and to perform activities with at least 3 different countries.
Coding was realised with schools from Turkey, Germany, France, Spain and Tunisia…
During the Code Week, the Near East Junior College, which organized activities with 5 countries, undertook the robotic coding activities, while the schools of other countries also carried out computer-free coding and online block-based coding activities. Moreover, a group presentation was made by different educational institutions from Turkey, Germany, France, Spain and Tunisia.
Participated with the highest number of students…
Within their own groups, more than 1000 students actively participated in coding and Near East Junior College met one of the criteria which involved the active participation of 500 students in coding; becoming the institution with the highest number of students to participate. Additionally, the Near East Junior College also successfully completed 10 events and was thus awarded with the Certificate of Excellence.
They Designed Earthquake Detection Robot, Search and Rescue Helicopter Robot, Space Exploration Vehicle, Recycling and Cleaning Robot and Smart Code…
As part of the coding events, Near East Junior College designed and coded an earthquake detection robot and with this robot and tested which buildings are more resistant to earthquakes. Additionally, with the search and rescue helicopter robot they rescued a stranded panda by carrying water to a forest where a fire broke out. Also, by coding a space exploration vehicle, they performed a surface screening activity on planets where people cannot go. Subsequently, they coded the difference between waste and garbage and got the recycling robot to collect plastic and metals.
In addition to the above, students retractable dam to keep bulk water flow when it rains and by coding a robot that is able to carry heavy loads and picked up big rocks which fell to the road. Moreover, an ocean cleaning robot was designed to clean the garbage and waste in the sea and oceans. Intelligent car robot that stops automatically when another vehicle or obstacle comes out and a guard robot to detect intruders when we are not at home were designed.
They are rather excited and proud to have received this award on their first participation…
Making a statement regarding their participation in the Code Week 4 All Challenge, Dr. Fatih Soykan stated that the robotic coding lessons were initiated in the academic year of 2018-2019, for the year 4s and 5s. Furthermore, he said that they were rather excited and proud to have received this award upon their first participation in this event and that they were highly motivated to get even better in robotic coding.
He further asserted that International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were taken as frameworks while integrating robotic coding in the curriculum of the Near East Junior College. Being aware of the fact that more and more activities are held on robotics, coding and digital competencies, they as the Near East Junior College were very proud to be the only school which integrated this subject in their curriculum.
He added that the aim of the Robotic Coding course is not to train computer engineers or software specialists, but rather to make logical solutions to the problems associated with real life. In fact, he stated that robotic coding help develop students’ 21st century skills such as creativity, critical thinking, analytical thinking, decision making, content generation, designing, coding, algorithmic thinking.
Millions of Participants Encourage Encoding Culture …
EU Code Week is a grass-roots movement that celebrates creativity, problem solving and collaboration through programming and other tech activities. The idea is to make programming more visible, to show young, adults and elderly how you bring ideas to life with code, to demystify these skills and bring motivated people together to learn.
In 2018, a new record was broken with 2.74 million participators with 43.657 activties and with the participation of more than 10% of European schools, including the Western Balkan countries. The number of participants in Code Week increased from 10,000 to 2.7 million in six years.
neu.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2019/06/19/mükemmellik-sertifikası.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Mükemmellik Sertifikası