Applications for EducationAs I wrote last week, developing excellent digital citizenship and cyber security skills is something that everybody must be assisting our trainees do. Revealing them little tips like this one to prevent clicking suspicious links is among the methods that we can assist our students develop their digital citizenship and cyber security skills.

Last week I composed
a blog site post about how to see whats hidden behind a Bitly shortened URL without in fact clicking the link. The technique is to include “+” to the end of the Bitly URL to see whats behind it without clicking on it. A couple of people emailed me to ask if the that worked with other URL reducing services. The response is it works with
TinyURLs..

The technique is to add a “+” to the end of any TinyURL address in order to land on a safe TinyURL page that reveals what the initial link was that got shortened. If you desire to click through to the location or not, you can then decide.
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, however including a “+” at the end of that TinyURL will take you to the page where you can see the original link without clicking on it.

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

Ive attempted the “+” technique with a lot of other URL reducing tools and TinyURL is the just one besides Bitly that Ive discovered it to work with..
Whats the trick?

The trick is to include “+” to the end of the Bitly URL to see whats behind it without clicking on it. A couple of individuals emailed me to ask if the that worked with other URL reducing services. If you see it somewhere else, it has actually been used without authorization.

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it somewhere else, it has actually been utilized without approval. Websites that regularly take my (Richard Byrnes) work include CloudComputin, TodayHeadline, and 711Web.