The coronavirus is forcing many colleges to go online only. But will it work for everyone?

In an otherwise empty classroom on the ground floor of Gould Hall on Monday, Rick Mohler leaned back in a chair and addressed his class of graduate students through a big screen TV.

On the right side of the screen was a live feed of moving faces — University of Washington students in their apartments, homes or dorm rooms, tuning in from around the city. Most of the screen was taken up by architectural renderings, as students in the class Architecture 507 displayed their drawings electronically and took turns talking about them.

In the span of just a few days, this has become the new normal at the UW, the first large university in the country to switch to online classes because of the coronavirus outbreak. By Friday, Gov. Jay Inslee had restricted all of the state’s colleges and universities to online-only classes through at least April 24.