Category: Tech Tips

Tech Tip of the Week: 2FA without a Phone

You are trying to log-in to Canvas when you suddenly realize your phone is dead and you’re stuck on the 2FA screen. Fear not! You can simply log-in to the NetID Center and request a temporary passcode. The passcode will be sent to your primary email on file and, voila, you can now login with 2FA without your phone. For additional security, you can also add multiple devices to 2FA. That way, if you forgot your iPhone but you have your iPad, you can login with 2FA without requesting a temporary passcode.

Tech Tip of the Week: Removing Text Formatting

You are working on a project that requires copying and pasting text but the original formatting can’t be removed. Fortunately, there is an easy solution. First, copy the text you want to use. Then paste it into a url box, which will remove the formatting. From here, you can copy and paste the text where you need it to go!

Tech Tip: Speedtest by Ookla

When you find your device struggling to load a webpage, download a document, or pull up your email, you might want to check your conncetion to the internet, whether you’re using wifi or a wired connection. With Speedtest by Ookla, you can determine Internet Provider address, the nearest server provider, how you’re connected to the internet, and most importantly, your ping, upload, and download speeds.

With this information, you can quickly and easily determine the impact the internet is having on your work at the click of a single ‘GO’ button. Simply search internet speedtest, or Ookla, and it should be the first result in any webpage search engine. Try it out here, at

 https://www.speedtest.net/

Tech Tip of the Week: Bulk Downloading Student Assignment Submissions

Did you know you can bulk download student submissions for assignments? As an instructor, Canvas allows you download all student submissions for an assignment as a single ZIP file.

You can use bulk downloads for multiple submission types, including file uploads, text entries, website URLs, and Google Docs submissions.

Canvas has a whole page dedicated to walking you through bulk downloading assignment submissions here, and if you have any questions, please reach out to the Help Desk!

Tech Tip of the Week: Safe Senders in Outlook

Have you ever missed an email because it was sent to your junk mail folder? You can avoid this issue by ensuring your contacts are listed as Safe Senders in Outlook.  Adding contacts to your Safe Senders list depends on the version of Office you have on your device. Microsoft has detailed instructions on how to add contacts depending on the version of Office you use. The Help Desk can help you with any questions you have about utilizing Safe Senders.

Tech Tip of the Week: Giving Feedback on the Canvas User Interface

Canvas isn’t always the easiest to navigate, and there may be times where you would like to address certain bugs in Canvas’s interface. The Help Desk can find workarounds where possible, and we are always happy to help answer Canvas questions you may have! While the Help Desk cannot change certain aspects of Canvas, you can still improve Canvas by providing feedback directly to Instructure and adding to already existing conversations within Instructure. Directions and details on how to provide feedback for Canvas via Instructure can be found here.

As always, the Help Desk is here for you, and Canvas related questions are always welcome!

Tech Tip of the Week: Slido

Slido is a tool that makes it easy to create interactive polls for Zoom meetings or other events. From multiple choice to word clouds (like the one the Help Desk created below), participants can see results change instantly. Polls can be embedded in PowerPoint slides via a personalized QR code or a link can be shared with participants. To learn more about creating interactive polls and to start your free account, visit www.slido.com or watch this video for more details on using Slido.

Tech Tip of the Week: UIUC AnyWare

UIUC AnyWare gives students and instructors access to a variety of software that can be accessed remotely. Even better, VPN is not required to use UIUC AnyWare.

UIUC AnyWare may be helpful to those who:

    • need to run software that they do not have access to on their own devices;
    • need to run software that their personal device cannot run due to processing power;
    • are unable to download large files due to internet bandwidth issues or data caps.

You can learn about available software by visiting the Technology Services UIUC AnyWare webpage.

Tech Tip of the Week: Managing Course Navigation Links in Canvas

Did you know you can tailor your course navigation so students can only see and access certain navigation links?

Canvas has great documentation on how to hide, enable, and reorder different course navigation links like announcements, modules, pages, people, grades, and more. Instructions for managing course navigation links can be found on Canvas’s community site here.

Please reach out to the Help Desk if you have any questions!

Tech Tip of the Week: StoryBlocks

Have you ever spent hours scouring the web for the perfect stock photo for a presentation? Good news! If you are a faculty or staff member, you now have access to Storyblocks, a repository of over 1 million high-quality images, videos, and audio files. To use this new service, go to the StoryBlocks website and then click “log-in”. Once you are on the login page, enter your Illinois email and press “enter.” The website will recognize you as a single-sign-on user and will prompt you to finish logging in through two-factor authentication. From there you can search easily for the content you need to finish your presentation!