Zoom Setup

We will be using Zoom as our primary interface for the College STAR Virtual Conference. This requires a small desktop client to be installed on your computer. You can download Zoom from here: https://zoom.us/support/download.  

Creating a FREE Zoom account 

If you already have a zoom account, please feel free to use it. If you do not, please follow the instructions below to create a free account. 

1. Visit https://www.zoom.us 
2. Click on the orange button in the upper right, “SIGN UP, IT’S FREE” 
3. Enter your birth date Zoom states they do not store this information and it is our assumption that this is just to verify that you are over the age of 13. 
4. Enter the email address you wish to use with zoom. 
5. An email will be sent to the address in step 4, please click the “Activate Account” link in that email. 
6. Complete the form with your name and password. 
7. You’re all set! 

As the conference gets closer, we’ll publish the links to the zoom meetings. Once you’ve installed zoom and created an account, you simply click these links to attend the meetings. 

Meeting Password

Zoom has recently started requiring every meeting to have a password. Every meeting you enter for the conference will have a password of cs2022. This will be posted next to every meeting link.

Getting Started with Zoom 

Zoom provides excellent support materials for getting started. Below is a video that details the process of joining a meeting. We will be using the first example, using a meeting invite, from the video. Instead of the links being sent in an email, they will be listed on the sessions page. Simply click the link from the session and follow this video to see how to join. 

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362193-How-Do-I-Join-A-Meeting-

Zoom Test Meeting 

Zoom also provides a test meeting that you can join to make sure you have everything set up correctly. It can be found here: https://zoom.us/test 

Zoom Room Etiquette  

We will be utilizing two different types of zoom rooms during the conference. For the main sessions we will be using “webinar” rooms. These rooms are a little different than the default “meeting” rooms you may have used in the past. They will give you, the participant, a little less control but in exchange tools are provided to help facilitate the session.  

For the Q&A with the Student Support Programs we will be using the standard Zoom meetings that have become so popular during the pandemic. When using these rooms, we ask you to read up on the proper etiquette to use during a virtual meeting.  

Please keep your microphone muted unless you are speaking to the group. It’s easy to mute and unmute yourself by clicking the microphone icon in the Zoom window.  

If you are comfortable and in a non-distracting setting, please keep your video on. This helps establish social presence in the meeting and provides the speaker with visual cues from the audience. Please recall that the meetings are recorded for posterity, so turning your video on is implying consent to have your likeness included in the recording.