Over the last 45 years as a student and faculty member in Computer Science, I have been involved in learning, teaching, and writing for the CS1 course. I have authored or co-authored textbooks for CS1 in nine different programming languages from FORTRAN to Java. Each new language was used because of a particular set of features it provided to solve the critical problem in programming or software development of the day. This talk will take a look back at these languages and the extent to which they succeeded. I will also take a look ahead to see what direction CS1 might be taking in the future.

Computing is undergoing a major paradigm shift. Radical new approaches to hardware and software will transform our online and offline lives, seamlessly combining the power of the internet with a world of devices. This talk will discuss the possibilities - and show how close we are to realizing them.

Years ago I was trained as a software engineering researcher, well versed in the mathematical abstractions of programming. However, influenced by the writings and research of Mark Weiser and his Xerox PARC Ubiquitous Computing group, I started to think about a different way of doing research in computing. Computing technology, as Weiser predicted, has become so prevalent in our lives that we almost don't recognize everything that is computationally-based in our everyday world.

In this talk, I will focus on how information technologies woven into our everyday lives can address significant problems in the delivery of health care for vulnerable populations. My main experience, driven by personal necessity, is with developmental disabilities, but I hope that my story will show how the integration of the physical and digital worlds makes a real difference in our lives and the lives of others.