Process of Change

Modifying Your Course Plan and Syllabus

Early Steps

Depending on the likely emergency time frame, you'll need to modify your basic course plan. Here's some early steps:

Determine, to an extent possible, how long the likely disruption will be. If the emergency is only for a few days - you've had to cancel one or two classroom classes - you probably don't need to do much more than provide an alternative lesson, with suitable notification. But if you need to modify more than a week, more planning is involved. Pay attention to campus communications in the Dome and your email for announcements and updates from administration.
Communicate with your department or program leadership, for any instructions, or plans to collaborate, before going too much further. Perhaps your colleagues, especially those teaching similar classes, can share resources or ideas?
If you must teach online, be sure you have a PC or laptop and a reliable internet connection available. You may also need a microphone and speakers.
If there is any possibility that you may be unable to continue teaching your course, designate a colleague who can take over. You can enroll that colleague in your D2L course space.
From the beginning of the situation, be accommodating or flexible on deadlines, and perhaps attendance in class. If the circumstance forcing change is regional, students likely have other challenges in their lives beyond just your class, such as clearing snow, checking on family members, or losing reliable internet. They may be adapting to change in many other classes, too.
If D2L is available, prepare to use it for various operations, rather than email, or third-party tools. Trying to teach via email and email attachments can quickly get unmanageable, especially if you teach large or multiple sections. Most students are already familiar with D2L.
From the beginning, consider an asynchronous format. It may be tempting to simply move your face-to-face class into a live web-conference format, but daytime internet traffic may disrupt meetings, and depending on the situation, you and your students may find frequent class meetings no longer practical.
Keep things simple. For example, recording videos can be more impressive than existing text resources, but don't create needless technical work for either you or your students, if it doesn't add definable value to the course.

Most likely, D2L will be the core of your emergency online plan. A few minutes learning how to upload or create things here is best for efficiently managing a class.

Communicate

Communicate with students at least twice in the process of changing your course:

The ASAP Announcement: in an email, in D2L, or in a classroom, make clear to your students that changes are coming, so they should be watching or listening to them. ASAP announcements tell students that the course is still a going concern, and to be attentive. Let them know how you will next communicate with them, with a plan and details. This can preempt a lot of similar emails from students seeking guidance, and buys you time to retool the course as needed. Lastly, you can give them a quick instruction (ex. "Meantime, keep reading the assigned readings for this week.")
The Modified Syllabus. Once you've at least roughed in a course plan change, edit your syllabus, or even create an addendum document that as briefly and clear as possible, spells out to students what they need to do during the next several days or weeks. You may make further changes as necessary later, but the Modified Syllabus document sets the course on a new path so students can continue working and learning in your course. It's the "course-plan-until-further-notice." You can announce subsequent modifications to students with suitable advanced notice, but try, in a single document, to get the big modifications made so students can more easily manage the changes on their end. While you wish to preserve the learning goals and rigor of your course, try to keep your modifications simple and if possible, repetitive. This is good advice for any course planning.
Further communication? Obviously, to continue the course you'll communicate with students. Barring necessary change, stick to the few, reliable communication paths you identified in your Modified Syllabus document. Frequent, but not too frequent communication is great. Students should sense that you take the modified course and their learning seriously, but try to collect updates into digest emails that are concise (brief). Peppering their inbox with hourly updates might get your emails lost amidst all the other email they are receiving.

Planning Process

Consider the following in the planning process:

What are a few basic communication modes should you rely on to communicate with your class? If the internet is down, this is probably pre-scheduled face-to-face classes. If campus is closed, this is probably D2L or email.
What is no longer feasible, due to the suspension of face-to-face classes, or the loss of a web resource or resources?
What is still doable, and can proceed as originally planned, or with some modification? (Ex. extended deadlines, a switch to paper format instead of electronic submission, or vice-versa.)
What learning objectives, related content, and activities many need to be scrapped and replaced altogether? Choose your priorities, and acknowledge what you can probably remove from the course plan altogether.
What can be added to the course that can take the place of lost activities, or even content? (If your classroom isn't available anymore, here's where the lists below become important.)
Try to build some flexibility and simplicity into the modified course plan, to reduce the pressure on you to execute it successfully.
If you elect to do video, such as webcam recording, web meeting, or screencasting, laptop microphones, speakers, and webcams can work. But you should consider purchasing an inexpensive headset, for better sound quality in both directions.

The Modified Syllabus document should include:

What is exactly is changing, and what student responsibilities are. Also, make clear what students are no longer required to do, at least temporarily. (For example, this may be telling them "Don't come to campus for class!")
What is not changing. This can simply be "for items not specifically mentioned here, consult the syllabus as originally posted," although you may wish to emphasize a few specifics.
Additional resources required. Students are responsible for learning how to use D2L features, even if you haven't used them before in your class. Students are usually pretty strong in Google-based tools. But they may need time to learn to use other tools if they are complicated. Encourage - incentivize! - students to help each other.
A few simple, reliable communications methods. This may be pre-scheduled classroom time, email, but it could also be the D2L News Feed, (which can encourage students to log into your class more frequently.) That way, they know where to pay attention.

If you are recording screencasts, a microphone and headset is essential. These are useful to have around for various purposes. For public health reasons, purchase one instead of borrowing it.

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