My experience of Met instruction on pilot training (early 80's), coupled with a fair bit of sandbagging on early morning met flights and the happily shared time of assorted met men, was excellent. So good, in fact, that when I did my Ocean Yachtmaster and my instructor had to take two weeks off, I was asked to switch from being the student to being the instructor for the world weather section.
Distance Learning can work in certain circumstances - I've done an OU degree - but again, the 3 big if's are usually not being met. As a manager for the Red Cross recently, I've seen our office switch back from online learning to instructor presentation because the online material was effectively useless. The Red Cross deals with disasters, so the real world throws up so many combinations of odd circumstances that an experienced instructor is needed to handle the student questions. It does make one wonder why they ever introduced online stuff in the first place.