This book is designed to help educators understand different types of technological resources for teaching social studies, plan and evaluate these resources in the curriculum, and examine potential future trends. The topics include an overview of social studies education and resources for exploring technologies, and guidance on how technology and computer software for social studies can place learners in an active role as they pursue social education goals. Computer software applications for teachers and students are evaluated, as are the uses of the Internet, the World Wide Web, and multimedia. Also considered is how technology helps achieve the social studies goals of examining values and making civic-moral decisions in an increasingly diverse classroom, society, and world. Chapters include: Social Studies and Technology: Past, Present, and Future; Promoting Social Studies Learning with Technology: Some Basic Considerations; Application and Research Software for the Social Studies; Tool Software in the Social Studies; Optical Technologies and Hypermedia; Building Community in the Computer Age; Technology and the Future: The Internet--A Forerunner to the Information Superhighway; and Resources for Using Technology in Social Studies Education. Includes a glossary and subject index. The book concludes with a list of resources--software companies, CD-ROM producers, videodisc producers, digital video producers, books, journals, and Internet sites--for using technology as a teaching and learning tool in a social studies classroom. (Author/SWC)