Oh yeah, certainly can. There are any number of tools you can use here. One organisation has set up a series of forums, inside specific courses, one for each student, to keep all conversations between mentors and mentees absolutely private. They use blogs, courses in the normal way, additional materials are provided on an at need basis, and a range of other ideas. Their office is in Adelaide and their students are anywhere from 50 to 1200ks away, real distance learning. I am sure that other parts of Australia are doing similar things. I know they use Moodle, and I am not sure they would get the same result using too many other tools.
This is a little too specific for me, but it works for them.