Recently I thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice if they got a popup recommendation when editing the Roll Call assignment’s settings page?”

So I had a conversation with an AI agent and was able to accomplish this by appending my Canvas theme with some javascript and css. Proof of concept video for you here…might want to view this at fullscreen to see the small text as I go clicky-clicky around the browser window:

Should you or your institution be interested in learning more, or getting a customized proof-of-concept for your situation, send me an email. I’m always happy to share information with my stunningly vivacious Canvas Insiders. :-)

Thanks for your time,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

A software application I’ve used for years to convert properly-formatted Word .docx files into Canvas quizzes gave me error messages after I changed the “New Canvas Login UI” settings.

Nerdy background info: I use a Mac Mini as my daily driver for work. The quiz conversion software I use is only made for Windows. For years I have relied on Parallels for macOS to let me use a Windows11 virtual machine solely for this software as a way to provide a service for my faculty clients. This week I discovered my software stopped working, and a faculty client needed a Word document converted to a quiz for later this week.

So I had a conversation with Gemini.

What resulted was a python script requiring no elevated rights in Canvas and no access tokens to leverage an API call. When I ran the command in my terminal application it immediately opened a new tab on my web browser, allowed me to upload my .docx file, showed me a preview of the quiz questions with correct answers, and required two mouse clicks to download a QTI .zip file of the converted quiz onto my desktop computer to import into a Canvas course of my choosing and create a new question bank as well. No cloud requirements, no tiered pricing structure, no external sources. Needless to say, I was chuffed with the workflow.

Here is a no-dialogue video of what I was able to create. Might want to view it in fullscreen size to see the small text:

If you’re interested in converting properly-formatted Word .docx files into a multiple choice / true-false quiz in Canvas, drop me a line. Always happy to share my nerdy info with my fabulous Canvas Insiders!

Have a good day,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

Couple of things:

1 - I used Canvas Beta for this video recording which has IgniteAI Agent enabled. I don’t have any AI tools enabled in my university’s live “Production” Canvas environment. Yet.

2 - You might want to view this video on a large monitor full-screen to see the details.

3 - I like Erik Satie’s Gnossiene #1. It’s playing in the background.

4 - If you have concerns of me violating FERPA or PII by showing an actual student’s essay in Speedgrader, you might want to check out the Ted Lasso TV show.

Thanks for your time,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

PS and by the way - I don’t use AI to generate my written words. This is my own original blabbering.

Instead of joining in the middle school cafeteria food fight online about artificial intelligence and agentic AI browsers, and their impact on Canvas, I am drawn to a story famously shared by Alan Watts, a mid-20th century “philosophic entertainer” about a Chinese farmer:

Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”

The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”

The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad — because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.

— Alan Watts

In addition, I often repeat this statement when faced with life situations that give me elevated states of anxiety and stress:

Christopher, there is more to the situation than you are aware of. Lift up and out of it to get a better perspective.

— My inner narrative

My hope for you, my fabulous and dazzling Canvas Insider, is that you will consider the possibility that a new product might not result in a career that is flushed down the toilet. A calling that is all for naught. A job that is unceremoniously terminated. My hope for you is that the overwhelm incurred from concern for events that have not yet happened might actually result in change that will ultimately benefit you and others.

Thanks for your time,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

PS and by the way - I don’t use AI to generate my written words. This is my own original blabbering.

In 9+ years as a Canvas Admin, I receive about 10 emails a calendar year from students asking why their course from a past term is still in their Canvas Dashboard.

I’ll masquerade as the student’s dashboard and locate the past-term course since the term is usually in the title. I then go to Settings and smile knowingly as I see Course set in the Participation field, but no end date set:

As soon as I enter that past-term’s end date and click Update Course Details to lock in the changes… POOF. The course disappears from the teacher and student dashboards, moves it to everyone’s Past Enrollments section, and sets it to read-only access.

I can hear you saying, “But Chris - we know you are a brilliant and benevolent Canvas Admin, but can the IgniteAI Agent fix this for teachers? Get back to the task at hand, nerd-boy!”

I recently had a conversation with the IgniteAI Agent about this very topic. Like to see it? Here it go:

As you witnessed, hopefully in fullscreen video, the IgniteAI Agent did indeed share the correct way for the teacher to fix their problem, but it wasn’t capable of entering an end date for the teacher. That would require specific input from the teacher, perhaps in a follow-up question sometime in the future. As we are in the second month of 2026, the IgniteAI Agent can provide a path to issue resolution for teachers of Canvas courses…but I have concerns with advising teachers to conclude their own courses, “…by changing its status from ‘Available’ to ‘Completed’…” when only an end date is necessary.

Thanks for your time,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

PS and by the way - I don’t use AI to generate my written words. This is my own original blabbering.

If you’re an experienced Canvas Admin like me, you’ve encountered a number of S.O.S. communiques like this. Teachers of Canvas courses, please hear me when I say this:

You are not alone if you find grades have mysteriously disappeared in your gradebook. This happens quite often. You should not be expected to know everything about Canvas. Situations like this happen, and they are fixable.

-Chris Powell, Canvas Insider

An experienced, caring, highly-attractive, witty, and extensively-knowledgeable Canvas Admin would guide Professor Plum to their gradebook to confirm what they are seeing:

The empathetic, patient, entertaining, and vivacious Canvas Admin would then go to the Edit quiz page and notice only one student is assigned the quiz:

Nodding their head, the benevolent, charismatic, and appealingly-charming Canvas Admin would assign “Everyone else” to the quiz and include the previous date/time info to prevent students from taking the quiz in the future:

Hopefully Professor Plum will exhale in relief as all other student grades return to their gradebook for that quiz:

This method works for assignments, discussions, quizzes….all graded curriculum in your course.

It’s obvious that AI agents can be trained on situations like this. But isn’t it nice that you have a wise, approachable, and eye-catchingly delightful Canvas Admin to help resolve these crisis moments?

Thanks for your time,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

PS and by the way - I don’t use AI to generate my written words. This is my own original blabbering.

Normally I disregard self-congratulatory humblebrag posts. I often roll my eyes at the one-AI-to-rule-them-all hyperbole from LMS “thought leaders”. But I couldn’t look away from the audacity of listing all the positions a late night vibe-coding session could replace and the money a school can save.

(By the way, if your institution pays $150k for a Canvas Admin, please send me an email at canvasinsider@protonmail.com. I’d like to learn more!)

I’ve been immersed in the Canvas LMS support ocean for over nine years. As you might have observed, I’ve had some experience with leveraging AI as a Canvas Admin. Obviously, an AI agent can help a school:

• Quickly access knowledge content to self-solve a course issue

• Quickly locate online directions to create or modify course content

• Quickly revise course content per customized directions

I am doubtful that an AI agent can assess a client’s technology skillset based on previous interactions and experience with prior-term courses:

Hi Chris....this has happened more than once...my comment in speedgrader PRINTS ONLY ONE WORD PER LINE OR gibberish in 5 columns. I write my comment for one student in speedgrader and submit, and then I want to copy and paste that comment into another student’s (to edit), and sometimes, it is literally gibberish

Thank you!

Professor Plum

An AI agent cannot genuinely understand a client’s angst in not being able to solve a problem with their course and respond with customized suggestions for their course issue:

I have grown frustrated with this anti-feature of Canvas, and I am hoping there is a reasonable workaround. Here is the problem. I often need to insert a table into an assignment, announcement, whatever. The Rich Text interface is limited, so I switch to HTML mode. I can switch back and forth to make sure that the HTML renders the way that I want, then I post it. Canvas then inserts a style on every single <td> and <th> in the table. This is not what I want, and I am tired of going back into the editor to remove the style. How can I make it stop changing stuff?

And I’m pretty sure an AI Agent can’t interpret a client’s email or ticket request containing…unclear…communication:

Chris,

Could you kindly roll [Abbreviated Course Title] (2024)

Term: Default Term

Into Summer 2025 [Abbreviated Course Title]

Thanks...we have students already committed, and we need to get the Canvas going.

A late night vibe coding session connecting an AI agent with a Canvas LMS cannot be a valid substitute for a full-time Canvas Administrator who knows their customers. A self-created MCP cannot replace a human with multiple years of fixing unique course issues. And I scoff at how an AI agent would comprehend client lingo in describing their problems. In 2026, nothing beats a knowledgeable, experienced Canvas Admin who knows the nuances and uniqueness of your institution’s LMS and clientele.

Thanks for your time,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

Couple of things to keep in mind:

1. This is a 17-minute video without narration. You’ll see a lot of mouse wiggling as I attempt to emphasize important information. I recommend you view this video full-screen on a large monitor. You might not enjoy the small mobile phone viewing experience.

2. This is a raw recording of my conversation and IgniteAI Agent’s responses. There was no AI manipulation (ha!) of what you see in the video.

3. The Canvas Beta instance is a bit slower than our usual Canvas Production environment. Thus, the Agent’s “Thinking” was taking quite some time in some cases. The jumps you see in the video are me pausing recording until it completed thinking…then I resumed the screen recording.

4. I’m a fan of Erik Satie’s Trois Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes.

Topics I asked IgniteAI Agent about:

• Student participation in my demo course.

• Creating an announcement.

• Creating a Group Set and adding students to groups.

• Hiding unpublished assignments in the gradebook.

• Providing a student additional time for a quiz.

…and other questions.

Thanks very much for your time and checking out this lengthy video,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

This isn’t going to be a gosh-this-was-such-a-busy-term missive. It’s not going to be a virtue-signaling-let-me-bore-you-with-all-the-amazing-things-I-did ramble. And this sure-as-sugar ain’t gonna be an AI-generated post on 5 ways to level up your Canvas course with sponsored content, constantly reminding you to smash that like and subscribe button.

I’m Chris. I’m a Canvas Admin. I know a lot of creative ways to fix issues with Canvas courses. I choose never to make my clients feel dumb. I never refer to my customers as “users,” they’re not drug addicts. And even though you probably haven’t met me in person, I also have a life outside my job that doesn’t involve technology. I am a deep-thinking, internally-processing, empathetic-to-a-fault introvert who uses way too many hyphenated descriptors.

If you are reading this and are a fellow Canvas Admin, I encourage you in 2026 to peek out behind the ticketing system you are required to use to resolve client issues and have a face-to-face interaction with your customer. Watch their facial expression as they describe their difficulties with their Canvas course. Do keep in mind that our customers don’t interact with Canvas 40 hours a week like we do; solutions we have sent to hundreds of clients may be the first time they are receiving the information. In 2026, I hope you develop a friendly rapport with a few of your clients so you know them, and they know you outside of a horribly-formatted, transactional, devoid-of-human-relation helpdesk ticket.

If you are reading this and are a manager/supervisor/director/imperial-wazoo of a Canvas Admin, I encourage you in 2026 to learn —in person— what your Canvas Admin’s superpowers are, and provide opportunities to leverage their talents during the workday. Take me for instance. My superpowers are hyper-observance and devising creative out-of-the-box solutions to technology issues. I can spot the solution to a client’s issue in their course within the first 8 seconds of listening to them, but I choose to let them be heard, and then offer a sometimes elegant, sometimes bailing-wire-and-duck-tape option for them to consider. Both get the job done and resolves the issue for my clients, and it never involves me telling them to click on a knowledge base article to fix the problem for themself. A high-performing, intelligent, resourceful technology support professional working for a bureaucratic workplace is hamstrung by enterprise-wide tech support policies. Blah blah blah, octagonal peg, triangular hole. Your Canvas Admin knows what software helps them get the job done; allow them the opportunity to do great work with their own tools.

If you are reading this and are a teacher, I encourage you in 2026 to understand the following: your Canvas support did not impose the mandate requiring your course content to be accessibly formatted for all learners because they are vindictive and take delight in giving you additional work. It’s a federal, say it with me… FED-ur-ull, mandate from the Department of Justice. Your Canvas support are the messengers of this ruling, and are offering ways to help you complete this required work. Please holster your verbal bullets.

If you are reading this and you are in a leadership/executive role at your higher education institution, I encourage you in 2026 to revisit your Canvas support to learn more about whom is making your department or division look good on a daily basis serving teachers, staff, and students. Some-not-all leadership choose to only receive information from their direct reports and opt not to engage with personnel lower down the organizational chart. Some-not-all are leadership missing a valuable opportunity to learn who the shining stars are at their educational institution.

If you are reading this and you work for Instructure, I encourage you in 2026 to help Canvas Admins easily add teachers to past-term courses. Since teachers can’t accept an invitation to join a concluded course, a Canvas Admin has to:

1. Go into the old course’s settings.

2. Change the Term from the original academic term to Default Term to un-conclude and save settings.

3. Go into the course’s People roster.

4. Add the new teacher to the course.

5. Masquerade as the new teacher.

6. Accept the invitation for them to join the old course.

7. Stop masquerading as the new teacher.

8. Go into the old course’s settings.

9. Change the Term from Default Term to the original academic term to re-conclude and save settings…

This takes me 52 seconds to accomplish when I am caffeinated and mentally in the zone. But still…I’m just sayin’. Nine steps. And I’m not finding efficiency with the SIS Upload method. It takes me 84 seconds because I have to clickity-clickity-click search around to copy/paste the old course SIS ID, Section SIS ID, and the User ID of the new teacher colleague into the enrollments.csv file. </NerdyCanvasAdminRant>

If you are still reading this, I encourage you in 2026 to send me a couple of ideas of what you’d like to see published in this Canvas Insider blog. I don’t want to be a content creator who recycles the same tips and tricks over and over with a different headline. But maybe you want a fresh look at something I posted in the past? Or maybe you want to hear more about what life is like in the trenches supporting an LMS used by 20,000+ faculty, staff, and students. Or maybe you are interested in learning what a Canvas Admin does to protect and secure their online life? You may not see it with most of my Insider posts, and some-not-all managers/supervisors/directors/imperial-wazoos at my workplace can’t see past my Canvas Admin job title, but I have a big tinfoil hat firmly planted on my head with my professional and personal technology landscape. And best of all? I like sharing information with people…

Merry Christmas in advance,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

Had an encouraging success story with a recent issue with meeting accessibility standards for <code> tag formatting in Canvas’ rich content editor. Appended some CSS code to the theme, saved the theme, and made our faculty client very happy. Check out the video to learn more!

Thanks for your time. Have a good day,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

I noticed a recent update to Canvas Assignments that might be helpful for teachers: annotating documents. While Instructure has an extensive online guide for students navigating through an annotation assignment, I wanted to show both the teacher’s and student’s perspective with this new update in Canvas.

Thanks for your time. I hope today is better for you than yesterday,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

[This was originally posted on my LinkedIn account, and is mainly geared towards Canvas Admins. If you’re a teacher, and you find this nerdy process interesting, feel free to forward it to your school’s Canvas Admin! I’m happy to help them with the process if they could benefit from it…]

Thanks for your time,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

[This was originally posted on my LinkedIn account, and is mainly geared towards Canvas Admins. If you’re a teacher, and you find this nerdy process interesting, feel free to forward it to your school’s Canvas Admin! I’m happy to help them with the process if they could benefit from it…]

Thanks for your time,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

A web application to quickly cross-list courses! Check out the video for my first foray with AI.

[This was originally posted on my LinkedIn account, and is mainly geared towards Canvas Admins. If you’re a teacher, and you find this nerdy process interesting, feel free to forward it to your school’s Canvas Admin! I’m happy to help them with the process if they could benefit from it…]

Thanks for your time,

Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

Continuing the Back to Basics series with this one-take video, I wanted to share a few aspects of course assignments…perhaps there will be a tip you might not be aware of!

Do keep in mind - Instructure has fabulous online documentation about announcements for your reference:

Canvas Instructor Guide, Assignments - https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/tkb-p/Instructor#Assignments

Nice to have you on this journey as we revisit courses from a fresh perspective,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

Continuing the Back to Basics series, with this one-take video, I wanted to share a couple of ways you can work with announcements in your course…perhaps there will be a tip you might not be aware of!

Do keep in mind - Instructure has fabulous online documentation about announcements for your reference:

What are announcements? - https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Basics-Guide/What-are-Announcements/ta-p/39

How do I add an announcement in a course? - https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-add-an-announcement-in-a-course/ta-p/1194

Nice to have you on this journey as we revisit courses from a fresh perspective,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

Recently Instructure debuted Canvas Apps, “…a new feature designed to streamline app integration and management for Canvas root admins.” Their words, not mine.

One of the more noticeable changes I found with this new way of managing and installing LTIs is the sequence of how Canvas Admins enter the third-party vendor’s specific information in the install fields. As I ventured into the new era of LTI app installs in my Canvas instance, I failed three times to get all the information entered correctly in Beta.

Now that I learned the appropriate steps, I wanted to share with my fellow Canvas Admins ~ as well as online book publishers and software companies providing LTIs to Canvas institutions ~ so that we all can progress together with the least amount of installation friction as possible.

Thanks very much for your time,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

Continuing the Back to Basics series, I wanted to share with this one-take video a couple of ways you can approach content pages in your course…including a couple of ways to leverage pages with students that you might not be aware of!

Do keep in mind: Instructure has fabulous online documentation about dashboards for your reference:

What are Pages? - https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Basics-Guide/What-are-Pages/ta-p/5

What is the Rich Content Editor? - https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Basics-Guide/What-is-the-Rich-Content-Editor-RCE/ta-p/12

Add page to the student to-do list - https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-add-a-page-to-the-student-To-Do-list-as-an-instructor/ta-p/824

Nice to have you on this journey as we revisit our courses from a fresh perspective,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

This ain’t no podcast, this ain’t no “…smash that like button and subscribe” video found on a popular website. This is a conversation with a colleague of mine, AJ Barse, where we discuss a new-ish web browser on the scene that has some…interesting capabilities.

Especially when it pertains to students taking quizzes in Canvas.

I appreciate your time. See you soon with another Back to Basics video.

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com

Continuing the Back to Basics series, I wanted to share with this one-take video a couple of ways you can approach your Files and Syllabus navigation menu that might help streamline or optimize how course content is presented for your students.

Do keep in mind: Instructure has fabulous online documentation about files and syllabus navigation menu items for your reference:

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Basics-Guide/How-do-I-use-Files/ta-p/617201

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Basics-Guide/How-do-I-set-usage-rights-and-user-access-for-a-file-or-folder/ta-p/617208

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-use-the-Syllabus-as-an-instructor/ta-p/638

Nice to have you on this journey as we revisit our courses from a fresh perspective,

-Chris

canvasinsider@protonmail.com