Tools for running classes remotely
A good beginning is to see what tooling is already in place at your institution. Rare are the schools which have zero online content. If it's already in use, you have an expert base to draw on.

Not knowing how it's grown over the past decade I can only suggest investigation into Blackboard. As a student I found it easy to use and the non-tech teachers seemed comfortable with it.

Some of the features, student-facing, which I recall being used are:


Online testing, multiple choice through essay (grading I have no clue about)
Timed dissemination of resources (date-based and progress-based)
Seemingly full featured messaging:


Non real-time student-instructor message panel
real-time one-on-one chat for instructor-student
real-time group (class) chat, with instructor piority
student-student (controlled by enrolled class) non real-time messaging
gradebook with current and progressive totals, with access to the results of each assignment for review
instructor to class broadcast messages

Personal contact controls seemed to be well made, including using a system supplied email (a couple schools had student email systems) or personal 3rd party email (Gmail, etc.)
Ability for student to personalize their interface and link their classes together and merge course calendars into a personal calendar.


My most recent use of Blackboard was in 2011, and goes as far back as at least 2004, perhaps more. (An earlier school had something like it, but I don't recall if it was Blackboard or otherwise.)

Found their website, but haven't done any looking. They are [Blackboard.com][https://www.blackboard.com/].