Welcome to Mr. Gilmore's St. John's Prep class home pages
These pages are intended for students in my courses at St. John's Prep where I teach in and chair our small Computer Science Department.
It's fairly unusual for a high school to have a computer science department, and ours shows the strong committment SJP has to helping students prepare for life in a technological 21st century. Of course the school's mission goes well beyond that; we'd like our students to use their abilities to foster justice rather than destroy things.
Our department offers classes in
- programming (Java, C++),
- robotics,
- 3D drawing (with an engineering focus),
- web design,
- desktop publishing, and
- subjects of their own choice (Topics in Computer Science)
The full catalog listing is available here .
I also moderate some of the clubs here at St. John's -- the Computer Programming Club, which is only a few years old and this year focusing on XHTML and JavaScript, and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Club. I've also begun co-moderating the Robotics Club this year.
Mr. Bernard F. Gilmore
Mr. Gilmore entered SJP as a freshman back in 1976. A 1980 Prep graduate, he went on to study as an undergraduate at Yale (B.A., 1984) and earn a master's degree at Harvard (A.L.M. in I.T., 2009).
In 1984 he returned to SJP to teach English and was a member of the English Department for 20 years, teaching students from grades 9 to 12 in courses ranging from college prep to Advanced Placement English Literature.
Since he left the SJP English Department he's been teaching in the Computer Science Department, chairing it since September 2007.
He also has extensive experience teaching test preparation courses, doing so for many years at Boston University and Northeastern University (where he twice was recognized as outstanding test prep instructor of the year). He now teaches LSAT courses at Boston College and SAT prep courses at St. John's Preparatory School, and has tutored students preparing for the SAT, LSAT, GMAT, and GRE.
Contact: email Mr. Gilmore
SJP students, please use your school email account if you'd like me to answer!
Paper mail:
St. John's Preparatory School
72 Spring Street
Danvers, MA 01923
Extra Help
I'm in my classroom after school each day except Friday till at least 3 p.m.
Generally I'm there much longer on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays when I have some club meetings going on. I supervise the clubs, but I'm available to help you at those times as well so don't be shy about asking.
When I'm not teaching I'm generally either in my classroom or in the Computer Science Department office in the Ozzie Technology Center of the Studzinski Library . Currently I'm free blocks B,D,E,F (though on Tuesdays I'm busy D and E.
Students are welcome to see me at any time.
Web Links Deliberate and Random
- Prep graduate who made our library possible (in conjunction with many other generous donors of course)
- Prep parent who made our technology center possible
- Spidergram of Google
How I Made this Site
Students might be interested in how I made this site.
But before the "how" comes the "why". I found the web tools the school was using to maintain class sites interesting but clunky. To transfer a single homework assignment from my lesson plans to a course website, I had to click multiple buttons and retype the assignment or cut and paste it from my lesson plan document. I had to repeat all the clicking and typing for each and every assignment and for each and every class. So, naturally, I found it was usually easier to just write the assignments on the whiteboard in class and not post them.
What I wanted was a system where I could simply upload my lesson plans and have the website do all the work of grabbing the homework assignments, etc., and all the work of posting them. That's what this site does. This required the use of three separate web technologies: XHTML, PHP, and mySQL.
The web pages are written in XHTML. I make extensive use of "div" markup so I can do things like write the menu system once for all my classes and then simply include the menu file in each class web page.
On the server where my website is hosted, I use the PHP scripting language to process my uploaded lesson plans and store them in a mySQL database. I then use PHP code in my XHTML documents to grab selected items from the database and put them into tables on the web pages. So, for example, when you load the AP CS A page, some code runs that says to the mySQL database "hey, fill this table with all the AP CS A assignments due from 8 days before NOW to 8 days after NOW."
So, all I have to do is keep my lesson plans up to date and upload them to the website. The code takes care of the rest.
Phase II will be to make the site pretty. I'm aiming at a three column layout that displays appropriately on a variety of screens, including iPhones. The current display is based on the css tips at this site.
Phase III will be to add resource links on the right and then make them easily searchable and organized. I anticipate creating a database of great resources. Then I'll use some PHP code to display certain types of resources on certain course web pages. Don't hold your breath for that part, though. It's unlikely to appear before next semester.