In history, perspective is very important. It is important to realize that our lives take up a very small portion of time, and even modern era, no matter when historians put the beginning of modern time, is a very small portion of time. However, in that time, many significant events have occurred.
Have your students brainstorm some of the most significant events in all of history that have helped create life as it is today. Do your students only think back as far as cell phones, or maybe the personal computer, do they go beyond to the colonization and later independence of America, or even further to early theorists such as Aristotle. Do they recognize the events that had to have occurred in order to for America to be colonized, and then for computers to be handheld?