Help & FAQ

Short answers to the questions teachers ask first.

How does it work?

Upload a lesson plan, and Bellwork writes review questions from it, grouped into categories. You check and edit every question before anything reaches students. Then pick a game, name your teams, and play it on the projector or smartboard. Students play in teams from their seats; they don't need devices. The same questions work in every game.

Which files can it read?

PDF (including scans), Word (.docx), PowerPoint (.pptx, slides and speaker notes), and plain text (.txt or .md), up to 15 MB. Upload one lesson or unit at a time. Bellwork uses only what the lesson teaches, flags anything it had to infer, and skips activities it can't turn into questions, such as opinion or hands-on work. Review lists what was skipped and why.

What does "simulated processing" mean?

This server is set up for real processing, so your file is read and the questions are written by Claude, Anthropic's AI model. Without that setup, Bellwork falls back to a simulation: the file isn't read, you pick a sample lesson to stand in for it, and the lesson is marked Simulated.

What about student privacy?

Students never create accounts or enter any information. Team names are whatever you type. Your lessons, edits, play history, and the game in progress are saved in this browser only. When real processing is on, student names and personal notes in a lesson plan are left out of the questions. The Privacy page has the details.

What's free?

Every game and every sample lesson is free, with no account. Uploading your own lesson needs a free account, which includes 2 uploads a month. Only uploads that make a full set of questions count: a file that isn't a lesson, or one that gives fewer than 10 questions, doesn't use one (simulated uploads don't count either). Bellwork Plus is $8.99 a month or $79 a year for up to 50 uploads a month and a library synced across devices. Students never need accounts. See Pricing.

Will I lose my game if the page reloads?

No. Refreshing comes back to the same screen, and a game in progress picks up exactly where it was. Bellwork keeps one saved game at a time. To start over, use Reset demo data at the bottom of any page: it clears your uploaded lessons, edits, play history, and the game in progress from this browser.