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

Bitly is an useful URL shortener that Ive used for many years. As a registered user I can develop custom-made, reduced URLs that individuals can actually spell. I use these whenever I require to share a link to a Canva or Google Slides discussion since the default URLs provided by those services are incoherent and constantly long..

Applications for Education.
Building good digital citizenship and cyber safety skills is something that everybody need to be helping our students do. Showing them little tips like this one to prevent clicking on suspicious links is one of the manner ins which we can assist our students construct their digital citizenship and cyber safety skills.

There is a simple way to rapidly identify 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 straight to a copy of the slides that I utilized 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 discussion URL and see when I created the reduced URL..
View this brief video to see how you can utilize the “+” trick to discover out whats hidden behind a Bitly link..

Bitly is a convenient URL shortener that Ive used for lots of years. There is a simple way to rapidly identify whats behind a Bitly URL without really clicking on the link. When you include the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly rather of to whatever the original URL was.