Spotlight 4 Success

Esports, Python, And AI

• American Book Company • Season 1

Share episode

Send a text

A hallway chat at LACUE 2025 turns into a masterclass on making technology serve learning, not the other way around. We sit down with Louisiana educator Anthony Swallor, who teaches math and physics, runs Python courses, coaches esports, and keeps the school tech humming—proof that small campuses can deliver big outcomes with the right strategy.

Website: spotlight4success.com

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to Spotlight for Success by American Book Company. I'm Devin Pentosi, your host. We are here at LACU 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. We are so excited to have with us today uh Anthony Swallow. Anthony joins us from Allen Parrish. Uh Anthony, uh good to see you today.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh nice to see you too, Devin.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Uh Anthony uh comes to us. Can you tell us about the different roles you have in your school? Seems like you're doing a lot.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh yes, sir. I do pretty much anything they tell me. I've got uh half the math department's mine, my wife's the other half. Uh I'm teaching physics this coming semester. Uh I also teach Python programming. Uh I'm also the esports coach, the school tech, and just whatever they tell me to do.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow, that's that's busy and and and uh amazing that you're doing all of those things. Uh small school gotta have multiple hats. I guess so. Yes, so and uh can you tell me about uh some of the initiatives that you're leading at your school?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh well actually esports we brought we're the only one in the parish right now. Um leading it for the parish. We started in 23 or 24. We just we just started. Wonderful. Uh yes, sir. Um so that's the main initiative we have there.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, that's great. And uh can you tell me a bit? I understand in in uh you've used the uh American Book Company materials.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for watching Spotlight for Success. I am David Pentosi, the chief operating officer of American Book Company. We are located here in our headquarters in Woodstock, Georgia. All of our materials are printed in the USA. We have to do that. You can get three samples of our materials either in print or in electronic formats at abc12.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh yes, sir. When I'm at conferences like this, I kind of like to uh get some of y'all uh your lessons and leave that for my kids to follow along. Uh with my geometry students, I like to give the angle relations lessons. I have a pretty old book at home, so it's it's not as fancy as your newer ones, but it still gets the job done.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, that's awesome. And uh can you tell me a bit about uh uh things that are going on uh with you in the school system in terms of uh initiatives that you've learned here at LaCue? Um like um um uh things that um like uh like uh something new you've done, like you learned Python and things like that? Uh yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00:

I learned Python and got certified in Python to teach Python. Um also I'm dabbling with AI, trying to get my kids to dabble in AI responsibly instead of you know just having it take a picture and solve their entire math test for them.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, so what does that look like? Um what is um what is um responsible use of AI look like in the classroom?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, we're allowed to use uh two AIs in our parish, Jim and I and Copilot. So I have my students use copilot and I have them turn on the study mode so it more walks them through the problems than just spits out an answer, and it can they can kind of like have a conversation with it to try and figure out where they went wrong. Oh, okay. Uh if they do, I try and probe them to do so, but they don't always follow along, they just usually try and just get the answers anyway.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, okay. Well it's always a always an interesting thing to manage in the classroom today, right? Yeah, sir. It's it's not going anywhere, so you gotta figure out a way to embrace it. That's right, that's right. Um do you have anything you'd like to share with the LACU community?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh well, I mean, just embrace AI, embrace if you're not uh using it, you're you're behind the uh times, it's it's here. We the kids are using it more than we are, so uh, and don't think you can stop them from using it. They they know more tricks than you do. So just gotta go with the flow, figure out how to go along with it instead of trying to ban it.

SPEAKER_02:

There you go. I'm totally with you. That's that's uh perfect. Um, Anthony Swallow, thank you for joining us today. Anthony joins us again from Allen Parish, Louisiana. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, Devin. Thank you for having me.