Cleaning Up Digital Clutter: Implementing Hubs

By Karey Wengert, Digital Learning Coach

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Summary: The "Clarity is Kindness" principle suggests that clear communication is an act of empathy that reduces stress and distrust within school communities. To combat the common frustration of searching through cluttered emails and folders, the implementation of digital hubs—centralized, "one-stop-shop" documents or websites—provides a single source of truth for all essential information. By maintaining one live, bookmarked link that evolves, educators can eliminate digital clutter. Ultimately, these hubs streamline workflows for teachers, students, and parents, allowing the focus to shift away from administrative confusion and back toward meaningful investment in students.

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There is one saying I’ve heard over my years in education that I have come to treat as a guiding principle: “Clarity is Kindness”. Some of the best kindness we can offer our teachers, students, parents, coworkers, administrators, and communities is to be clear and up front with what we expect and what we need. Lack of clarity can cause school communities to struggle to communicate effectively, and this communication breakdown can lead to high levels of stress and distrust.

The question then becomes, how do we avoid all of this unnecessary confusion and communicate clearly with those we work with and for every day? Often, we live in confusion, not clarity, about the location of important documents and information in our busy lives. We spend time searching for that email from last week, or finding that newsletter our principal sent out, or trying to dig through a massive archive of digital folders to find the document we need. 

The Clarity: Hubs

Although there are many solutions to this digital clutter, one way my team and I have found highly effective is through implementing digital hubs. A hub, very simply, is a one-stop-shop for all important documents. It can be housed in a Google Docs, or a Google Sheet, or a website. It can use a variety of platforms or appear in different formats, but at the core, it is one place for important documents, essential communication, and key organizational information. For example, this is my own personal hub:

You can see I have created categories and linked to important information there. Some links are to documents, emails, websites, or even other hubs for the schools or district I serve. This document is one I constantly have open on my computer, regardless of what I am doing that day. It has turned into a time and stress-saving measure because I know I always have what I need at the tips of my fingers. It changes regularly because it is a live document, constantly being updated as I have new information I need to retain and categorize.

The schools I work with have hubs for their staff. The teams I work with have hubs that they store important information in, such as weekly lesson plans and field trip information. I have even seen teachers use hubs with students, creating a unit hub where they store notes, slides, assignments, and other essential information so students have one place to go to access important information. Teachers and schools have also created hubs for parents and the community. Hubs can serve a variety of purposes, but at their core, they seek to place all essential information in one easily accessible place.

Tips & Tricks

When considering implementing hubs, there are a few tips and tricks we’ve learned along the way that are incredibly helpful:

• Pick a platform and stick to it: Whether you choose a website, a doc, or some other method, settle in and stick to it.

• Create a system for adding information and limiting editing access: Is one person going to have the responsibility of adding to the hub? Or will you allow multiple people to update it? Both have their place, but consider carefully who edits what.

• Bookmark it: Encourage everyone who needs it to save or bookmark the hub. When people ask for something that is on the hub, direct them back to it. It will take a little time to get into the hub routine - but it is so worth it!

• Edit the same hub instead of making a new one each year: This means that the link to the hub always stays the same, so there is no need to rebookmark something or remember to go somewhere new year after year. In addition, many things in a hub outlast a school year. Plan a time in the summer or breaks to review the hub and add/subtract as necessary.

  
  

Clicked it twice? Time to Hub! My rule of thumb is that if I access a document or information more than twice, I save it in my hub. Information that needs to be repeatedly accessed (even if only once or twice a year) stays in my hub, ready when I need it.

I hope that you will consider using hubs to spread the kindness of clarity in your school, community, or organization. Cleaning up the digital clutter in our lives with a well-maintained, one-stop-shop hub can help us spend less time searching and more time investing in what is really important: our students and communities. 

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About the Author

Karey Wengert is a Digital Learning Coach and former classroom teacher, with over a decade of experience in public education. She specializes in facilitating coaching cycles, designing professional development, developing curriculum and resources, and integrating meaningful technology to meet diverse student needs. She loves working with teachers and students to sprinkle a little digital fairy dust! Connect with Karey on X and Bluesky @KareyTechFairy