Once you get used to the basics of being a Canvas Admin, you may be interested in going into deeper woods. Working with API calls takes some skill. We won't be so adventurous in this lesson, but the path is there when you are ready.
Access tokens are what allow third-party applications to access Canvas resources on your behalf. These tokens are normally created automatically, but should you need to create one for project development, you can generate one manually. Each token is unique, and you will only be given it once, so copy it down or you will need to regenerate one.