This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it in other places, it has actually been used without authorization. Sites that routinely steal my (Richard Byrnes) work consist of CloudComputin, TodayHeadline, and 711Web.

Applications for Education.
Structure good digital citizenship and cyber security skills is something that everyone need to be helping our students do. Revealing them little ideas like this one to avoid clicking on suspicious links is among the methods that we can help our trainees construct their digital citizenship and cyber security skills.

Bitly is a convenient URL shortener that Ive used for many years. There is a simple method to quickly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without actually clicking on the link. 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 used for several years. As a signed up user I can develop customized, shortened URLs that individuals can really spell. I use these whenever I require to share a link to a Canva or Google Slides discussion since the default URLs offered by those services are incoherent and always long..

Unfortunately, not all Bitly users are utilizing them for good reasons. Some people utilize them to conceal wicked links. There is an easy way to quickly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without really clicking on the link. The technique is to merely add a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you add the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly rather of to whatever the original URL was. That will then reveal you the Bitly page on which the reduced URL is hosted and will reveal you what the original link was..
You can attempt this trick with a URL that I recently reduced. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL will lead you directly to a copy of the slides that I used 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 discussion URL and see when I developed the reduced URL..
Watch this brief video to see how you can use the “+” technique to discover whats concealed behind a Bitly link..