Spotlight 4 Success

From Gaming Consoles to Classrooms

• American Book Company • Season 1

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Join us on Spotlight 4 Success as we talk to Adrieanne Moliere, a pioneering Esports coordinator and gaming-in-education advocate. Discover how Adrieanne transformed her childhood passion for gaming, nurtured alongside her older brothers, into a groundbreaking career that connects the virtual world with educational development. Her unique journey from a special education teacher to leading a thriving E-Sports program of over 350 students across Louisiana is a testament to the unifying power of gaming, especially during challenging times like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stream the Spotlight 4 Success Podcast: https://spotlight4success.buzzsprout.com

Devin Pintozzi:

Welcome to Spotlight for Success by American Book Company. We are here at LaCue. I am Devin Pintozzi, your host, and I'm here with Adriane Moliere of eSports. Very nice to meet you today.

Adrieanne Moliere:

It's so good to meet you,

Devin Pintozzi:

yes. So much fun around eSports and everything. I'd love to know, Adriane, how did you get involved with the organization? How did you do all of that?

Adrieanne Moliere:

It's been a long journey. I grew up gaming. I have seven older siblings, four older brothers.

Devin Pintozzi:

Wow,

Adrieanne Moliere:

all very heavy gamers Don't want to involve their little sister. My mom kind of forced them and I started beating them in games like Madden and NBA 2K and instead of getting embarrassed, they actually brought me in and that just evolved into playing Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards and I kind of afterwards left that realm for a little bit, started teaching special education and then, during COVID, gaming just ended up being this perfect way to bring kids together that are already in the virtual environment. So it was perfect. Um, the program grew from five kids to 20 kids to 30 to now over 350 students, k-12 wide, um, multiple clubs, traveling, all of that great stuff. Uh, and and yeah, it's now I'm the eSports coordinator. I went from being a teacher to the eSports coordinator over at my school.

Devin Pintozzi:

That's great. Where did you teach originally when you were a special ed?

Adrieanne Moliere:

I was teaching my first year. I taught in West Baton Rouge Parish at Port Island High School.

Devin Pintozzi:

Okay.

Adrieanne Moliere:

And now I've been teaching the last five years at University View Academy. It's a virtual K-12 charter school in Louisiana, but our students are all across the state and my favorite part about it is that my two of my nephews and my niece my niece is a senior this year. She's graduating, but they've all gone through the school there.

Adrieanne Moliere:

I'm super excited to always watch them walk across the stage, so that's like my favorite part

Devin Pintozzi:

, wow that sounds like so much fun, you know, seeing all that you got those family connections, and then here you are in the gaming and promoting it. How did the program grow so quickly?

Adrieanne Moliere:

honestly it was. It took time. It's I would like to say it was overnight, but we've really been working at this for about three years. Um, and it's it going out recruiting, informing people, teaching them, bringing them into gaming, encouraging students to do the same thing with their parents.

Adrieanne Moliere:

I think what blocks a lot of people off to esports altogether is that learning or that ignorance kind of around it. Oh it's a video game, it's not useful, but there's all of these awesome learning capabilities that come along with it. There's those gross and fine motor skills, there's that working memory, that cognitive flexibility. That's the reason why I grew up playing a game like Halo and I'm 30 now, but I have 12-year-olds that are destroying me at it, even though I've been playing for 10 years, because they're quicker than me, They've got better reaction times, they're super good and it's just really tapping into what we know kids use. We grew up on the playground. They're growing up in the virtual environment and tapping into us, knowing that, hey, this is what kids use. How can we, as educators, use it to our advantage?

Devin Pintozzi:

Oh, that is so awesome. I'm so happy you're a part of all of that. So what special activities did you do here at LACUE that you can talk about?

Adrieanne Moliere:

Oh yeah. So I hosted a student panel the other day where educators got to hear from students that have been involved in the program. There's ambassadors, they really run all of the broadcasting, all of the journalism that goes into the esports program. I also ran a coach's panel where we talked. We got into the nitty gritty, some of those difficult conversations about gaming, you know, getting it into administration, getting it into your school, your district. And then I also did two presentations on Minecraft. One was Minecraft how can you use it in your class? How does it connect to our state standards? How should we use it with everything that's changing in the state? And then also a demo of Minecraft and esports, where we actually go in, we're building, we're competing with each other and basically just having a really good time.

Devin Pintozzi:

Oh, that sounds like so much fun

Adrieanne Moliere:

oh it was.

Devin Pintozzi:

That's great.

Devin Pintozzi:

I would love to know how you tied into the standards and make those connections. That's fantastic that you're able to do that and really make that case right, Make the case to the administration.

Adrieanne Moliere:

It's education.

Adrieanne Moliere:

Oh yeah, yeah, I mean anything that you can tie to standards. And yeah, I mean anything that you can tie to standards and we already we use game-based learning every day anyway. We use Kahoot, quizzes, all of these other programs. Why not use video games? That kids are very talented at and it makes them confident when they start learning.

Devin Pintozzi:

Oh, that is so fantastic. Is there anything else you'd like to share with the LACUE community?

Adrieanne Moliere:

Of course, lacue. I would love for y'all to be on the lookout for all the great work we're doing in Capital Area Esports. We are also working to grow LACEF. So if you're doing esports wherever you are in the state of Louisiana, reach out to us, email us. You can find us at lacefcom and we'd love to connect with you, see what we can do to support you and help grow your program.

Devin Pintozzi:

All