SAE Visit #2: Zoom Style

Digital SAE meetings through Zoom may be the SAE (supervised agricultural experience) visits of the future! This afternoon, I was able to meet with a student and Mr. Deysher to talk about her SAE projects and AET (agricultural experience tracker) profile. The new social distancing style of an SAE visit went very well!

The visit started with the student showing me her dairy beef steer projects. She has three holstein steers that she purchased from local dairy farms. The steers get milk from her cows that she milks with some additional calf feed. She spends time every week feeding, walking, and working with her steers. When the weather gets a little nicer, she plans on washing them and practicing walking them with their show halters. She expressed concern of not being able to show her steers due to fairs possibly not happening, but we assured her that the project of raising the steers to sell would still be a great SAE project!

After visiting with her steers, we started to review her AET profile. The screen share function worked great for this section! After talking with Mrs. Carole Fay and Mr. Deysher that morning, I had a better understanding of what the student could do to improve her AET profile. I was able to lead her through the steps to improve her SAE on AET. Instead of needing to explain a bunch of different steps, then logging onto the computer, and forgetting half of what was suggested, the screen share function allows teachers and students to collaborate and work on the page together. I was able to specifically show her how to improve her records.

Learning how to do SAE visits virtually is something new for everybody! Like Mr. Deysher said to me, there is no right or wrong way to conduct these meetings. Our first one was a success!