Computers can be used in a variety of ways in the social studies classroom: (1) as a productivity tool to relieve the teacher of the many bookkeeping tasks and allow for more time to be spent on instructional tasks; (2) in business applications such as data base files, electronic spreadsheets, word processing, computer graphics, and to store large amounts of information that would be unwieldly otherwise; and (3) as a tool for individualized tutoring and in teaching the higher levels of learning such as problem solving and decision making. Research on effective classroom use of computers is cited. However, the full potential of instructional computing will not be realized until educators take the time to discover the power and possibilities of this technology. (SM)