Info for Early Collaborators (Teachers)

You are interested in shaping Bouncy Feet and create one of the first few lessons for it?

Awesome! The project stands and falls with wonderful people like you. Our dearest gratitude even just for coming here and reading this!

Now, teaching in a in-person class looks different for every teacher. There is no fixed structure. The uniqueness of every teacher makes it magical.

Putting it all in software, however... Well, we have to define some sort of common structure. Otherwise, the computer will simply say no. Sorry about that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Here is a loose definition of how we envision the teaching structure in Bouncy Feet. But keep in mind, we can adjust this structure and the software along the way, as we are building out the platform.

Steps

A step is something like the Running Man. To put it in the app, we have to define a sequence of body positions and how we transition between them.

When there are multiple variations of a step, as with the Running Man, we add them all as different steps.

Different teachers can even add the same step with the same name but teach it slightly different. Dancing isn't an exact science after all, eh?

Combos

Steps are the building blocks for a combo. Maybe a Running Man combined with a spin. This will make for more interesting and advanced classes than learning step after step in isolation.

Combos are not tied to a specific song and are usually around 4 to 8 counts.

Choreos

A choreography is a longer sequence of steps or combos. They are set to a specific song and can be a great way for those of us who are not so comfortable with freestyle dancing.

To create a choreo, first all the individual steps need to be created and then combined to a choreo.

Make sure you are allowed to use the song played in the choreo, or reach out to find a song that won't cause us any copyright issues.

Courses

Teaching steps, combos and choreos can all be similar from a technical point of view. Users can find courses for each of them. Starting a lesson for all three types of content will feel very similar to users, in terms of how the use the app. You make the difference with how you split it in lessons and what you say in the videos.

As a teacher, you split up the course in short lessons of a few minutes or shorter. Each should have an explainer video and and exercise to dance along.

During the exercise, you can chose to display a video of the teacher (you) or use the phone as a mirror for the user. You can even combine a mirror view with an animated stick figure that shows the movements. We will have to try what works best for your specific course.

We are also working on better audio hints that you can add by recording your voice that will play on certain beats during the lesson. This will make it much easier to follow along for the students.