Collaborate (or CourseSites Live) is an excellent way to add a human touch to your online courses. You can use voice, emoticons, and chat to communicate with your students. Although this chapter did not discuss using video, that is also available to you.
There are several keys to successfully hosting a live session with your students. Many of them were implied in the previous instructions.
Have your students test their systems first. Blackboard provides a free site where they can do this: http://support.blackboardcollaborate.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=8336&task=knowledge&questionID=1473. Make this testing, and reporting to you that they did the test, an assignment in your course.
Make your first online meeting a practice session.
Have a welcome slide displayed so that students see it as soon as they enter the session.
If you're using audio, have some kind of audio greeting for students when they enter the session, so they won't wonder if their audio is...