From Gaming Consoles to Classrooms

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.

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Transcript

Devin Pintozzi 0:00

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 0:15

It's so good to meet you ,

Devin Pintozzi 0:16

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 0:26

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

Devin Pintozzi 0:32

Wow ,

Adrieanne Moliere 0:33

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 1:30

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

Adrieanne Moliere 1:34

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

Devin Pintozzi 1:38

Okay .

Adrieanne Moliere 1:39

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 2:00

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

Devin Pintozzi 2:05

, 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 2:16

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 2:34

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 3:23

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 3:32

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 4:25

Oh , that sounds like so much fun

Adrieanne Moliere 4:27

oh it was .

Devin Pintozzi 4:27

That's great .

Devin Pintozzi 4:28

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 4:38

It's education .

Adrieanne Moliere 4:39

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 4:56

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

Adrieanne Moliere 5:01

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 5:23

All