Topics: Freeware for authoring educational software and ebooks. Start self-publishing. Do AES secure email (eemail) and documents. You only need a common word processor.
BrainWizardPhD (BWiz) is a free download Windows authoring software tool to enable anyone to easily develop secure (encrypted) smart documents using almost any common word processor. These documents can include:
· Quizzes
· Tests
· Questionnaires
· E-books
· Guides
· Encrypted Emails and Telegrams (see EEMail)
The BWiz smart documents, formerly called BWiz instructional packages, are (still) called BIPs for short. Despite the name, BIPs are not required to be "instructional" and BWiz use is not limited to just teachers and students. BWiz has progressed to become a multi-purpose smart document authoring tool with significant encryption features and something for everybody.
BIPs are created by authors who simply write their materials in a word processor that produces HTML output and then feed the HTML files to BWiz Teacher or BWiz Professor, which produces BIPs as output. Absolutely no knowledge of HTML is required for almost all of the BWiz features - use Microsoft Word or the free Open Office or LibreOffice.
The BIPs made by authors/teachers are then sent to students/readers/consumers who use the BWiz Student elearning software to learn or respond. See for example SightWords, which teaches children and English learners over 400 of the most commonly-used English words. The SightWords BIP is included for free with all versions of BWiz.
BWiz Student in concept is very similar to a PDF reader - download a freeware program and use it to read documents in a special format. BWiz Teacher and BWiz Professor in concept are similar to a PDF authoring tool. However authors need only use their favorite HTML-producing word processor (e.g., MS Word) and then use BWiz to post-process the word processor HTML output to produce the special format that BWiz Student uses. Therefore, the learning curve for authors is minimal.
The BWiz Student elearning software can be redistributed by authors/teachers, so BWiz Teacher and BWiz Professor are great tools for self-publishing.
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Installing. The various versions of BWiz are Windows programs that must be downloaded from brainwizardphd.com/download/ and installed. They are portable apps and can even be installed to and used from a USB flash drive. Using. The BIPs created by authors are then transferred to the end users' computers that run the BWiz Student version. This could be done via a website, by email, by Telegram, or by handing off a USB flash drive. The BIPs are then read by BWiz Student, which displays the BIP's embedded HTML in the user's favorite browser. An Internet connection is not required. |
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Distributing. Authors like the fact that they need not maintain a server to have their content displayed. They just need to distribute their BIPs and (once only) the installation package for BWiz Student. This is very easy to do. BWiz is a good platform for self-publishing ebooks.
Authors and teachers are permitted to distribute the BWiz Student version to their users themselves. Students may also get their BWiz Student version from brainwizardphd.com. For the BWiz Teacher or BWiz Professor versions, one must go to brainwizardphd.com because redistribution of these versions is not permitted.
Super Easy. The BWiz Teacher or BWiz Professor versions are incredibly easy to use. All one must do is to insert commands like .page and .textfield and highlight answer fields. Then run the resulting HTML through BWiz Teacher or BWiz Professor to produce a BIP.
Example: A teacher prepares the following in Microsoft Word (or LibreOffice Writer/Web or similar) and saves it as SimpleQuiz.html:
.textfield
.page Barnyard Sounds
A cow says moo. A pig says oink.
.page Pet sounds
A cat says meow. Dogs like to bark.
A BWiz author version reads SimpleQuiz.html to create the file SimpleQuiz.html.bwiz-bip that will show the following quiz in any BWiz version:
(The above is a screenshot, so the buttons and fields will not work).
(End of example)
Students then load SimpleQuiz.html.bwiz-bip into a student version of BWiz whereupon they see the Barnyard Sounds page. They are expected to type in the correct answers to the two questions and then press the Next button. If the answers are correct, they will be taken to the Pet Sounds page. Otherwise, they will be prompted to correct their answers. If the student cannot provide an answer, the student can press the Reveal button.
Super Fast. BWiz is essentially a specialized web page and database server. But since it runs on one's own computer and not over the Internet, the response speed is exceptionally fast. Internet access is not even required as long as the BIP does not contain external hypertext links that the user must click.
Anti-Cloud. BWiz is completely self-contained and, so, runs entirely on one's own computer and not over the Internet. Whether you are an author or consumer, this protects you from snooping. It also protects you against the loss of your work in case of a failure in a cloud solution. This puts authors and consumers in total control of their own work without any reliance on any third party.
Two-layer Encryption. BWiz internally encrypts all data that must be kept secret, such as User Notes and answers to questions. This is done with a fast, proprietary algorithm. It is not as secure as AES-256, but would still require a cryptographic expert to crack. When BIPs are compressed for the emailing that BWiz supports, AES-256 is used on the compressed file. See How secure is AES?. The User Notes, email, and encryption features of BWiz means BWiz can be used as a secure email system. Doctors and lawyers could send questionnaires to clients and clients could add answers and notes and return them in complete content privacy using email and BWiz. For more, see EEMail.
New 06/23/17 Alternate Communication Paths. BWiz now supports sending and receiving BIPs using third-party software. By default it will use Telegram, and no BWiz configuration is needed. You can use something else like FTP or another messenger by changing the supplied SendBIP.bat script. The BWiz encryption is in addition to that supplied by Telegram, and it alleviates some concerns some people have with Telegram's security. For more, see EEMail.
Who Needs BWiz? It is not limited to just elearning:
● Traditional teachers who want to prepare lessons for students.
● Serious students who want to quickly convert their lecture notes into quizzes for themselves.
● Parents who want to help their children improve their grades.
● Home schoolers.
● Professionals, debaters, speakers, and anyone else who must master certain critical materials.
● Professional content developers who want to earn money by developing BIPs and selling them.
● Persons who need to send & receive tests or questionnaires by email with answer encryption.
● Those who wish to send encrypted emails and messages, which is easy with the BWiz Add Note feature and EMail interface.
Developer: R. T. Bailey
This page was last modified Sat Mar 20 10:32:39 2021
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