The article focuses on the argument among education professionals concerning the use of online social games to replace textbooks in schools in the U.S. It emphasizes the idea of education professionals for a reform which involves online learning. They suggest that taking Web-based learning to online social gaming may become the educational tool of choice. On the other hand, traditional education proponents prefer dismissing of computer games as inconsequential. They argue that a strong precedent for independently motivated online game-based learning has already been created.

As video games, particularly, social games are growing in popularity and number of users, there has been an increasing interest in its potential as innovative teaching tools. Gamification is a new concept intending to use elements from video games in non-game applications. Education is an area with high potential for application of this concept since it seeks to promote people’s motivation and engagement. The research in progress will try to find how to apply social gamification in education, testing and validating the results of that application. To fulfil these objectives, this paper presents the guidelines and main features of a social gamification framework to be applied in an existent K-6 social learning environment.