What is the Best Way to Learn About Metaliteracy?

Photo Credit: athleanx.com

As I was responding to other students' blog posts in the RSS feed, I came across one post that was particularly interesting. It was of another student in the MOOC, who was really excited to utilize this course in his future ventures. He also seemed to be a fan of group work and team based learning. I think that his post was great, but it led me to start thinking about some other ideas.
Since metaliteracy seems to be a fairly new term, is it really best for this course to be largely online? Over the three weeks of this course, I have found that I understood new concepts best when I was in class, interacting with the other students and with the professor. I find it difficult to fully submerge myself in the course, when it seems to be more about teaching myself. Metaliteracy is a new term, but its definitions and concepts are not. On the first day of the course, I was utterly lost with the subject, and from looking around at my fellow classmates, I could tell that they were lost too. The information online was not helpful, and it was not until the second class meeting that I started to really grasp the meaning of metaliteracy.
Thus, would it not be better to have a course where the students would be able to actively discuss and engage with the topics in person? I am not saying that there is anything wrong with online courses, but I think it is difficult to teach a person how to properly utilize the Internet, on the Internet. What do you think?