This post initially appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it somewhere else, it has been used without approval.

Applications for Education.
Structure great digital citizenship and cyber safety skills is something that all of us need to be helping our students do. Showing them little pointers like this one to avoid clicking suspicious links is among the manner ins which we can assist our students construct their digital citizenship and cyber security skills.

Bitly is a convenient URL shortener that Ive used for lots of years. As a registered user I can develop custom, reduced URLs that individuals can really spell. I use these whenever I need to share a link to a Canva or Google Slides discussion because the default URLs offered by those services are constantly long and incoherent..

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

Bitly is a convenient URL shortener that Ive used for numerous years. There is a simple way to rapidly identify whats behind a Bitly URL without in fact clicking on the link. The trick is to simply add a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you add the “+” the URL will redirect to Bitly instead of to whatever the initial URL was.

If you desire to try 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 original link without clicking on it.

There is an easy method to rapidly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without actually clicking on the link. The technique 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 initial URL was.
You can attempt this trick with a URL that I recently shortened. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL will lead you directly 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..
Watch this short video to see how you can utilize the “+” technique to find out whats concealed behind a Bitly link..

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