This paper discusses the implementation of technology in social studies education. The first section addresses reasons why technology is used in social studies education, including the goal of making the social studies classroom a site of active learning and critical thinking. The second section describes three frameworks for using technology to promote active learning, i.e., inquiry-based learning, bridging reading and writing through online interaction, and making student work public in new media formats. The third section considers things to avoid, including educational software that promotes passivity, school systems' failure to provide professional development for using new technology, and the danger of viewing technology as an end in itself rather than a means to achieving better student learning. The fourth section offers the following recommendations: (1) a renewed national commitment to insuring that the benefits of new technology be shared equally; (2) a revised assessment to accurately measure learning in the new media environment; (3) more tools and supports that will enable teachers to use electronic resources actively and critically; (4) robust professional development programs that will allow teachers to retool for the electronic future; (5) efforts focused on preservice education as well as inservice; and (6) acknowledgment that this country is still at the starting point of the selective appropriation of new technology and that we need serious classroom research into what works is needed. (Contains 30 references.) (MES)