Television offers a variety of educational programming, including documentaries and biographies, that may can prove more useful than the textbook. Films can illuminate the events and people in history for those students that are more artistic or imaginative. Music can often be an important historical artifact, helping to reinforce themes and values of the era in which it was written. Also, modern history has largely been broadcast over the radio, so recordings of speeches and news events would also be available. Historically appropriate music can be played in the background while students are working independently or in groups.
Pictures are another essential artifact of social studies.
Slides of art or photography are beneficial when studying cultural values of peoples or places. Pictures from magazines or books can be displayed to help with understanding of current events or distant places and times. There are good educational programs on CD-ROM that can aid in the study of people and history. Computers can also be connected to television monitors or displayed on a big screen so that one computer can be a teaching tool for all the students in the class. Overheads work well when lecturing as teachers can write on them as if they were chalkboards.