gather.town is web-conferencing software where participants can see themselves as little characters (or avatars) in the virtual room they are occupying. They can move around the room and interact with other participants either in public areas (like cafes) or private areas (like meeting rooms). When participants interact they can use audio and video. There is also a chat option and participants can interact with objects that have been uploaded into the room. These may be embedded .png files (images) or links to YouTube videos. There may also be whiteboards that participants can use for groupwork.

The YouTube video below uses a different layout to the one we have set up for the conference, but the basic instructions are the same for all rooms. It explains how to set up your character, how to enable your audio and video and how to move between public and private spaces using the arrow keys on your key board. To use objects in the room you need to click the x key on your keyboard.

Please note: You will not be able to use gather.town on a mobile phone as you need a keyboard to use it.

We are trialling the use of gather.town for informal networking at CTE conferences. Up to 25 users can visit the gather.town cafe at any one time, so if you can't get in, try again later to see if it is available.

Any interactions you have with other participants in the main cafe areas are public (so you will hear other audio feeds in the background). To have a private conversation with other participants, enter one of the smaller meeting spaces. You will get a pop up message saying you have entered a private room when you do this (and the public areas become greyed out). Your audio and video will then only be available to the participants in the private room. Some private rooms are set up for two participants and others are set up for small groups. Once the private room limit has been reached, other participants cannot join that room.

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