Sue Kwiecien is an Ontario educator who started out her teaching career supporting students with special needs. Sue believes that valuable resources should be accessible to all educators. Realizing that educators were always on the lookout for valuable resources, Sue co-founded Cube For Teachers and continues to unite educators by sharing, supporting and inspiring. As a modern educator, Sue believes that an educator’s time is extremely precious and accessing powerful resources to support differentiated learners in real-time is paramount.
Cube For Teachers began because Sue saw a need for supporting teachers to locate and curate resources to support their work. “Educators spend an insurmountable amount of time to support the learners in their class.” On Cube, educators get a profile page that connects their social networks as well as resources they find useful and valuable. Cube For Teachers is a place where educators are uniting, collaborating and storing the resources they find. Resources that are shared can be found on the web or created (i.e. Google Drive, O365). Cube for Teachers is a great way to keep organized and pinpoint resources quickly. It is one of Canada's largest educator sharing networks with nearly 56,000 shared resources. In its simplest form, “Cube is a social bookmarking community for educators.”
When preparing for her appearance on The Personal Playlist Podcast, Sue thought it took longer than she anticipated as it caused her pause for reflection. “The songs that you listen to really tell a story about your life.” She enjoyed the process of introspection and the thinking generated from getting ready for the show. In the end, Sue felt that her songs reflected her life well.
Sue’s nostalgic song is one that she grew up with. “That song is just about opportunity.” It reminds her of her time in Muskoka with her family where she spent weeks cottaging in the summer at a resort, spending time with the same families year after year around bonfires and listening to music. “It’s just that feel good, dream big, the whole world is ahead of you, great Canadian song.” Here is Ahead by a Century by The Tragically Hip:
Sue’s identity song was chosen because its message has been a constant in her life. As she grew up, she quickly recognized that the world was filled with barriers, she was sometimes shocked after seeing the world from outside her rose-colored glasses. It’s the same kind of message from the previous song, our guest shared, noting the lyric, “No dress rehearsal.” Sue has always been a determined person undeterred by stumbling blocks. She referred to famous phrases like be the change and carpe diem because driving ourselves further sometimes needs a belief or vision bigger than yourself. Like the title of the song, Sue will do whatever it takes to achieve her dreams. Here is Imagine Dragons:
Sue’s pick-me-up song is one that always makes her happy. We bantered about the era that this song came from because it's cheerful nature is reflective of growing up. “The music was so upbeat and positive.” Her children are even listening to some of this music because they are hearing it through social media and video games. Sue had considered a different song called Life is Good by Champion, but she picked this song because the music is so joyful and makes her feel good when she hears it. Here is Walking on Sunshine, a song on many soundtracks and 80’s playlists, by Katrina and the Waves:
If you want to learn more about Cube For Teachers, check out the website. You can find Sue on Cube sharing valuable teaching resources among a growing global community of educators. You can also connect with her via email, on Twitter or follow Cube For Teachers on Twitter.
Cube is always adding new features. A recent addition is the ability to search from the front page - without an account. Also, Cube’s Chrome extension is an efficient way for educators to quickly cube resources, like on Pinterest, organizing and storing them for later use.
