About
Team Mojules, Mo and Julie
Rob Muhlestein and Julie LaChance are living proof social media works. A teacher at heart, Rob randomly found and followed Julie on Twitter interested in learning about technology in education. When Julie called for local volunteers to assist with Second Life skills training Rob responded. Without thinking about it at the time, this turned out to be an example of 21st century skills that “encourage the integration of community resources beyond school walls.” Julie and Rob discovered how complimentary their backgrounds, skills, and working styles were. Julie’s award-winning focus on education, love for applied technology, and a personal network of educators meshed well with Rob’s corporate career, an aptitude for creating useful applied technology, and a personal network of business and creative contacts. A natural partnership emerged. Their friendship, open biases, and expertise make for a fun and effective teaming and presenting style.
Mojules has also grown to enjoy the help of dozens of subject-matter experts and partners contributing tools, environments, and presentations to learners of all types and origins.
Julie LaChance
Since before receiving her masters in Instructional Systems Technology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2006, Julie LaChance has shown her passion for 21st century learning as a technology facilitator first at an elementary, and now at Northwest Cabarrus High School for which she was named 2009 North Carolina Technology Educator of the Year at NCTIES. In September 2009 Julie was privileged to show visiting Governor Bev Perdue the new tools and changes she facilitated for her 40-year-old school enabling better creativity and collaboration in class room learning. Her favorite accomplishment is her school’s iPod cart and state-of-the-art iLab. There, students create their own projects relating to the standard curriculum in all disciplines. Today, you will find Julie exploring the use of virtual worlds as an educational tool. Join her in Second Life as Julie Sugarplum, where she volunteers as an ISTE docent mentoring newcomers. Once a month Julie also leads group collaboration and discussion at the North Carolina Second Life Educators group, which she founded. Julie conceptualized and directed the creation of EDTECH Retreat (ETRE) Island, a safe home for educators used for NCTIES and other initiatives. Julie believes virtual worlds can be used in schools to take creativity to the next level allowing students to take charge of their own learning.
Robert Muhlestein
A life-long geek, learner, and helper—Rob Muhlestein (Mo Hax, as most know him) has worked with a rich variety of people, cultures, and enabling technologies. For the last 10 years Rob has programmed and maintained systems tools saving millions for IBM. Rob came into Second Life early in 2007 having seen IBM’s CEO standing in a recreation of the Forbidden City. He eventually founded the IBM Second Life Mentors community and started blogging and making video tutorials to help others get started right and find value. Six years earlier Rob worked as Nike’s intranet webmaster having come from a few successful 90s Internet start-ups before that. While at Nike Rob was selected for the annual There is No Finish Line award for establishing Nike’s first Intranet web portal. His love of technology facilitation started in college teaching language labs, programming tutorials, and developing learning tools. A Russian language major, Rob lived in Russia for several months as a cruise director and interpreter before shifting fully to a technology career. He loves content development almost as much as making friends and currently shares what he has learned with anyone as a mentor and ISTE Docent. Rob is the principle designer, terraformer, builder, and scripter of EDTECH Retreat (ETRE) Island. If you talk to him for any length of time, you will likely hear about his favorite topics, the Disney Effect, how using this technology can improve lives and foster valuable relationships, “there is nothing virtual about friendship.”