Tools for running classes remotely Today, university after university in the US announced moving to online classes. This is perhaps easier in CS than in, say, ceramics or dance, but it still presents unique challenges. 


  Can anyone recommend tools for hosting online class meetings with active learning? 


I know I could use Zoom or google chat to simply lecture to students, but when I teach I like to get students working in groups to solve problems. Is there anything like Zoom that allows for a "talk to your neighbor" moment? Or should I just assign students a buddy and have them facetime each other during the active learning portions of class?


  Another question is: what are the other needs we should be thinking about? 


For instance, I just saw a new question asking about proctoring exams. I'm also thinking about online discussion forums like Piazza where students can get debugging help from each other (the sorts of easy questions they often ask me during class or office hours). But I'm sure there are many aspects of course management I'm not yet thinking about, and hoping others can chime in and suggest some (plus, ideally, software that can help). Feel free to retag. Thanks!
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/].