Welcome to the ITE Met Section Virtual Speed Mentoring & Virtual Career Fair

We hope all participants will have a great time at our event!

EVENT SCHEDULE

• 12:00 PM -1:00 PM Speed Networking
• 11:00 PM - 2:00 PM Career Fair
• 6pm-8pm In-person Happy Hour

Black Forest Brooklyn - Fort Greene, 733 Fulton St, Brooklyn, NY, 11217

Quick Guide to Gather Town

Please use Google Chrome, Firefox or Desktop Safari (Beta) as your web browsers when you launch the Gather Room. Gather may not be compatible with other browsers.

How it works:

• Gather is a video chat platform that has avatars move around a map. As you get close to other avatars, your video’s will pop up and you will be able to chat.
• Move around the space using the W,S,A,D or arrow keys.
• By moving your avatar around you can have spontaneous conversations with those around you. These can be either one-on-one or small groups depending on how many people are around you and what you set your interaction distance to be.
• When your avatar moves closer to an interactable object, there will be a notification that shows up saying ‘Press x to interact with -object-’. This can range from informational flyers, playable arcade games, integrated Zoom meetings, and more!

Setting or Changing your Name/Avatar

When you first use Gather, you will be asked to enter your name and choose your avatar. If you are already in the space and would like to change your name/avatar, please click on your avatar icon in the toolbar on the bottom of your screen.

Toolbars

Use the Toolbars on the right or bottom of the screen to use Messaging/Chat, make changes to your settings, open mini map, change your avatar or clap your hands!

Private Spaces

• Private spaces are areas in the map where everyone inside can see each other, no matter how far they are with no video/audio fading.
• Only other users in the same private space can see or hear you (highlighted area).

How to View and Navigate Your Video Calls

In Gather, when your avatar approaches others, a video call automatically starts between you and the people you approach. All videos will initially appear at the top of your screen. In an open area, you will be connected to everyone within 5 tiles unless you activate Quiet Mode. When you are in a Private Area, you will be connected to everyone who is also inside of the private area.

When there are multiple participants in one gathering, a select number of video call windows will be shown at the top of your screen. The number of video participants shown depends on the size of your browsing window and resolution of your screen.

Video Carousel

You can scroll between the videos manually by clicking the arrows to the left and right of the videos shown.  This is called the "video carousel".

Grid View

Grid View will display up to 9 videos in a grid format at the same time with their names and avatars visible. To exit Grid View, click button in the upper right of your screen with the arrows pointing towards each other.

When you are in Grid View, you can collapse back to the regular Video Carousel by clicking the button in the upper right corner of the screen.

Video and Audio Settings Introduction

Every time you enter a Gather space, you will be asked to select your input devices (microphone and camera).

A screenshot of the input selection window that appears when you enter a gather space. The camera is set to 'OBS Virtual Camera' in the example. Your hardware settings will be different. Then click on 'Join the Gathering!' button at the bottom of the window.

To change settings inside Gather, click on the cog on the left side bar to open your Space settings. In the upper left corner of that window, click 'User' to see user settings.

A screenshot of the options window, which you can open by clicking the gear icon, which is the first / top most option in the left side menu bar. In the window, there are two tabs for User and Space. User is selected, and the information below relates to the what is in the User options.

Audio and Video Troubleshooting

• Refreshing the page will fix most things!
• If that doesn’t work, try muting and unmuting your mic and camera in Gather.
• If you use Google Chrome, try opening Gather in a new incognito window.
• Check if your browser permitted camera and mic access
• Additional troubleshooting at https://support.gather.town/help/av-troubleshooting

Messaging

Users can send and view messages in the Chat Panel, located above the participants tab, second from the bottom on the left of your screen. Here, you can view past messages, as well as send messages of your own.

You can access the messaging system by clicking the chat bubbles icon in the bottom left of the screen

There, you can send messages to three different kinds of recipients, which you can toggle using the options located in the drop box at the bottom of the Chat Panel.

These options allow you to send a message to:

1. Everyone - Your message will appear in the chat panel for every user in the space.
2. Nearby - Your message will appear in the chat panel for every user that you are currently video chatting with. This could be whoever is standing within your interaction distance, or whoever you are in a private space with.
3. Individuals - The remaining options will display the names of other users in the room. You can scroll through this to select a user to send a private message to. You can also click on a users name in the chat history to make them the recipient of your next message.

A screenshot with examples of messages to everyone, nearby, and private messages.

You can also click on a person's name in the chat panel to automatically start private messaging them.

Note that you can only send private messages to users that are currently online and in the Space with you.

To close the side panel simply click the arrow in the upper left. This works for Builder Mode, the Calendar Pane, the Messaging Panel, and the Participants list.

Click the arrow to close the side panel!

Follow Feature

The Follow Feature allows someone to easily follow another person without having to move their own character around a space. When you are in follow mode, you automatically follow the person you chose to follow. To exit follow mode, press any arrow key to move away from the other person.

To activate follow mode, click on the person's name in the  Participants List and select 'follow.'

You can follow someone by clicking on their name in the participant's panel and selecting the "follow" option.

Alternatively, you can click on their name inside of their video conversation to open the same module.

You can click on a person's name inside of their video to open up their User Menu.

To stop following someone, press any arrow key on your keyboard.

Browser Settings and Permissions

Gather must request permission to use your mic and camera from the web browser. Right now, Gather is supported on Chrome, Firefox, and Desktop Safari (in Beta). Here's how to check your browser and system settings to make sure you have a smooth experience in Gather.

To work properly, Gather should be Allowed access to the microphone and camera.

If you dismiss or block the initial mic/camera permission pop-up window, you may see a message stating that "Gather needs your permission to access your Camera/Microphone..."

The warning you will see when your browser has blocked Gather from accessing either your camera and/or microphone.

You may close this warning, but if you do not change your settings, others may not be able to see or hear you inside of Gather.

Here is how to find your browser settings and grant Gather access to your camera and Microphone.

Chrome Settings

When you first enter Gather, you will see a pop-ups asking for camera and microphone access permissions. Click "Allow" in order to provide the best experience in Gather.

The pop-up asking for your camera and microphones permission will appear on the upper left side of your browser. Click Allow to continue.

If you accidently blocked Gather from accessing your camera or microphone, you will see a camera icon in the upper right of your site address bar with a red "x" to indicate that you have denied the site access. You can click on this to change your preferences.

If you accidently blocked camera or microphone permissions, you can click the icon in the upper right to see what you have blocked and adjust your permissions.

After selecting the radio button to allow Gather access to your camera and microphone, you will need to refresh the page for the changes to go into effect.

After allowing access to your camera and microphone, you may need to refresh your page before changes will go into effect.

You can always check or change your permission settings by clicking the lock icon in the upper left of your site address bar.

Privacy and Security settings for each webpage you visit are easily accessed on the left side of your site address bar.

Firefox Settings

When you first enter Gather, you will see a pop-ups asking for camera and microphone access permissions. Click "Allow" in order to provide the best experience in Gather.

A pop-up asking for camera and microphone permissions will appear on the upper left of your screen when you first use Gather.

If you accidently blocked Gather from accessing your camera or microphone, you will see a camera and/or microphone icon in the upper left of your site address bar with a grey slash through it to indicate that you have denied the site access. You can click on this to change your preferences.

If you have denied Gather access to either your camera or microphone, it will show you icons with a grey slash through the camera and/or microphone icon.

To remove the blocked permissions and allow Gather access to your camera and microphone, click on your site privacy and security settings by clicking the lock icon on the left site of your site address bar and then clicking the "x" next to each blocked permission. Refresh your page.

Click the "X" next to each blocked permission inside of your site privacy settings located on the left side of your site address bar.

Once all permissions have been granted, you can always check or change your settings by clicking on the lock icon in the left side of your site address bar.  Your site security settings should look something like this:

Site settings with both camera and microphone permissions temporarily allowed.

If you get this message instead, you need to refresh the page.

Site settings after canceling blocked permissions but not yet refreshing.

Desktop Safari (Beta)

Safari will prompt you for camera and microphone permissions when you first log into a space.

A screenshot of Safari's permissions prompt. It says "Allow "gather.town" to use your microphone? You can change this setting in Safari Websites preferences." There are three options: Allow, Never for This Website, and Don't Allow.

Safari will prompt you twice for camera and microphone permissions when you first log into a space. Click 'Allow' to permit Gather to use your microphone, and to use your camera.

If you accidentally click 'Don't Allow', refresh the page and try again.

If you accidentally click 'Never for This Website', you can change this setting in your Safari Preferences.

In Safari Preferences, open the 'Websites' tab and scroll down on the left side bar until you see 'Camera' and 'Microphone'.

Safari preferences window, with the 'Websites' tab highlighted. In the list of permissions, Microphone is selected. In the list of websites, gather.town is selected, and the drop down menu is set to 'Allow'.

Click into each one of these and find gather.town on the list of websites to the right, then set the drop down menu to 'Allow' (or 'Ask', if you wish to be prompted every time).

You might get stuck with a screen saying "Awaiting Audio and Video Permissions" if you dismiss or block the initial mic/camera permission pop-up window or if you have not previously enabled security permissions for your browser on a Macbook or Apple computer inside of your Apple Privacy and Security Settings.

To access these settings, open System Preferences and select Security and Privacy.

Open your Apple System Preferences by click on the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your screen.

From your system preferences, select and open your Security and Privacy settings.

Enable permissions for both your camera and microphone  for the browser you are using.

In the menu on the left side, find and select 'Camera' and 'Microphone' and check the box on the right to enable permissions for your web browser to use your camera and microphone.

You might need to click the padlock in the bottom left corner to allow changes to your system preferences.

More Information: Gather Town Help