I am all for distance learning since we have adopted it at our college.
It has several advantages that benefit the students and staff and college funding.
During a normal lesson, using an interactive whiteboard, you can actually call up the web site and conduct your pre-arranged lesson and add to it if needed. If a student is absent for any reason, they can access the web site and catch up on that material, or revise previous material and if necessary print the material which saves us producing reams of handouts.
All material can be updated when needed, thus helping to keep costs down without waste of resources. The material produced can be tailored to suit the course running. And the best of all is that with the programmers help parts of the lesson can be annimated which is extremely helpful for the students to gain a proper understanding.
The response from others about it not replacing the classroom is quite true. You need the interaction from the lecturer, you also need the real life situation, the heat from the experiment, the electric shock hazzard, the pressure vessel rupturing, you can't smell burning or get an electric shock on a computer program.
Distance learning, CBT and any other name you give it is assiting in the teaching of the students. it helps the teacher and the student equally I am all for it.