Applications for Education.
Building excellent digital citizenship and cyber security skills is something that all of us should be assisting our trainees do. Showing them little pointers like this one to avoid clicking on suspicious links is one of the manner ins which we can help our students construct their digital citizenship and cyber security skills.

Bitly is a convenient URL shortener that Ive utilized for many years. There is an easy way to quickly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without actually clicking on the link. The technique is to merely include a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you include the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly instead of to whatever the initial URL was.

Bitly is a helpful URL shortener that Ive utilized for several years. As a registered user I can develop customized, shortened URLs that people can actually spell. I utilize these whenever I need to share a link to a Canva or Google Slides presentation because the default URLs offered by those services are constantly long and incoherent..

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

This post initially appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. It has been utilized without permission if you see it elsewhere.

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

Not all Bitly users are utilizing them for good reasons. Some people use them to hide nefarious links. There is a simple method to quickly identify whats behind a Bitly URL without in fact clicking on the link. The technique is to just add a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you add the “+” the URL will redirect to Bitly rather of to whatever the original URL was. That will then show you the Bitly page on which the shortened URL is hosted and will reveal you what the original link was..
You can attempt this technique with a URL that I recently shortened. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL will lead you straight to a copy of the slides that I used in my recent Intro to Teaching History With Technology webinar. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL+ will lead you to the Bitly page where you can see my initial presentation URL and see when I produced the reduced URL..
Enjoy this short video to see how you can use the “+” technique to find out whats concealed behind a Bitly link..

As I do every year, Im taking today 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.