Bitly is a handy URL shortener that Ive utilized for several years. As a registered user I can produce customized, reduced URLs that people can really spell. I use these whenever I require to share a link to a Canva or Google Slides discussion due to the fact that the default URLs supplied by those services are incoherent and always long..

Heres a video introduction of how to see whats behind a TinyURL without really clicking on the link.

Applications for Education.
Building excellent digital citizenship and cyber security abilities is something that all of us ought to be helping our students do. Revealing them little ideas like this one to avoid clicking suspicious links is among the methods that we can help our students build their digital citizenship and cyber safety abilities.

There is a simple way to quickly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without actually clicking on the link. The trick is to merely add a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you include the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly instead of to whatever the original URL was.
You can attempt this technique with a URL that I just recently shortened. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL will lead you straight to a copy of the slides that I utilized in my current Intro to Teaching History With Technology webinar. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL+ will lead you to the Bitly page where you can see my original presentation URL and see when I created the shortened URL..
View this short video to see how you can use the “+” technique to discover whats hidden behind a Bitly link..

As I do every year, Im taking this week as a break from publishing new post and will be republishing some of the most popular posts of the year. Heres one from April.

If you wish to attempt this with a TinyURL, tinyurl.com/emkns9a8 will lead you to the page for the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp, but adding a “+” at the end of that TinyURL will take you to the page where you can see the initial link without clicking on it.

Bitly is a helpful URL shortener that Ive used for numerous years. There is an easy method to quickly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without really clicking on the link. The trick is to just include a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you add the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly instead of to whatever the original URL was.

This post initially appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it in other places, it has been used without approval.