I was tasked with reorganizing the resources available to the agricultural educators across the state, as well as the way the Idaho FFA Association and lateral organizations organize and communicate these resources to those agricultural educators. Years of staff changes in numerous capacities has, over time, allowed resources to be placed across the platforms of various organizations, including the University of Idaho, the Idaho Agriculture Teachers Association, the Idaho FFA Association, the Idaho FFA Foundation, and across the Idaho Ag Ed Listserv. There were numerous instances of agricultural educators needing resources for a particular FFA activity or for new educators needing resources for their courses and having to locate these resources across the multiple organizations in which they existed. Very rarely did early-career educators even realize that particular sites housed certain sets of curriculum or program documents.

By the end of my experience, I was able to design and publish a new Idaho FFA website (available at idahoffa.org) and create a master Google Drive that houses all of these documents. A lot of time was dedicated to researching which resources needed to be maintained on the other organizations pages, and much time was dedicated to discussing with these organizations to develop clear plans of transition. It was our goal to not disrupt or make resources unavailable to current ag educators, but we wanted these resources to only appear in one place once they were ready to be disseminated to the profession.

My host site was instrumental in helping me make new connections with the other organizations. While I was familiar with the leadership teams of these organizations, I did not have any personal connection which lent itself to being the most difficult part of the externship. My host site had intentional conversations with each of the organizations to help facilitate my discussion with them. Additionally, I was accessing multiple accounts within the framework of the Idaho FFA Association, which required access levels that most agricultural educators do not have. This was facilitated and managed by my host site, which I greatly appreciate the quick responses and support they provided. I met with them frequently to ensure I was carrying out the vision needed for the project.

This project has broadened my understanding of the complex relationships between the organizations that serve the agricultural education profession. Further, I gained a new appreciation for the work that is done by state-level staff to maintain the day-to-day operations of Idaho CTE and the Idaho FFA Association. I learned of countless new resources that I was entirely unaware of previously, which I intend to utilize in my own program to support my students. Additionally, I do not have a background in website design and file management, and while I consider myself fairly well-versed with computer applications and software, I also gained a new skillset in developing websites using HTML code. I had no prior experience with HTML code and am still a novice in most regards, but I did learn the very basics in order to develop the new website.

While my externship was different than most, I was able to work so closely with Idaho FFA and CTE state staff and I am grateful for this opportunity. I hope the work I completed is beneficial to both late and early career educators as well as agricultural education students across the state.

Grade Level and Subject Taught: 6-12