The Adoption & Diffusion of “The AET”

By: Marie Gowan

Agricultural Experience Tracker (AET)Online system for tracking educational and financial experiences in agricultural education

Summarizes experiences into standard FFA award applications

Aggregates those experiences across programs to produce local reports and overall economic impact reports

Before the AETPaper record books

ACRO: Computer software program. Farm record keeping system, but the company saw the need to help ag students keep their SAE records.

Early 90’s: Excel based programs

Late 90’s: IMS web based program

Innovation Development Process

1) Needs/Problem ~ Old systems were managed and sold on a kid by kid basis ~ Offline ~ Geared towards award applications ~ No way to print mass reports

2) 3) Research & Development ~ Dr. Hanagriff and two other associates at IMS brainstormed the new program ~ 6 months to develop ~ Pilot tested with ag teachers for 2 months

Innovation Development Process

4) Commercialization~ Debuted at Texas ag teachers conference in 2007~ Viewed teachers as their clients

5) Diffusion/Adoption~ Within 8 years they now have 612,000 AET accounts in 45 states

6) Consequences ~ Able to provide school officials, industry stakeholders, and legislatives with economic impact reports ~ Save students and teachers time

Factors Affecting Rate of Adoption Compatibility

~ By 2007 most schools had computers~ Accessible by smart phone ~ Affordable

Trialability:~ 90 day free trial for students and teachers

Observability~ In chapter reports (used to get donations, sponsorship, scholarships, awards)

AET Pricing Structure

Factors Affecting Rate of Adoption Complexity

~ Online video tutorials~ Ask AET

Vanessa RutherfordAssistant Director of Educational Outreach

Factors Affecting Rate of Adoption

Relative Advantage~ Online~ Efficiency~ Free guides~ Manages records as a chapter v. per kid~ Actually teaches kids about record keeping principles

Who Decides to adopt AET? It depends on the state.

Collective innovation decision: The state FFA association collectively decides to…~ Adopt it and require all chapters to use the system (AK)OR~ Pay for chapters who wish to adopt it (CO)

Optional innovation decision: teachers are allowed to purchase AET service if they so wish (TX).

While AET considers teachers to be their clients, they can sell to the state in the case of Arkansas, or to teachers like they do in Texas.

From An Ag Teacher’s Perspective

Kasee Smith Started teaching ag in 2007 in Utah

Used an Excel spreadsheet to keep recordso Student files often got lost or corruptedo Hard to grade

AET came to the Utah ag teacher’s conference in 2007oQ&A session with AET repso Teachers in attendance voted to adopt (90% of Utah ag teachers in

attendance) o Utah schools had 3 years to fully transition over to the AET

From An Ag Teacher’s Perspective Complexity:o Program is not intuitive for all students so teachers training

is necessaryoUtah held teacher in-service trainings for ag teachers

Relative AdvantagesoOnlineo AET is always adapting to the needs of the teachers/students o It can print out chapter wide reports

The AETA Successful Innovation

Week of October 12, 2015