This post initially appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. It has been used without approval if you see it in other places. Sites that frequently take my (Richard Byrnes) work include CloudComputin, TodayHeadline, and 711Web.

Applications for Education.
Building excellent digital citizenship and cyber security skills is something that everyone must be helping our students do. Revealing them little suggestions like this one to prevent clicking on suspicious links is one of the manner ins which we can assist our trainees develop their digital citizenship and cyber safety abilities.

Bitly is a helpful URL shortener that Ive utilized for several years. As a signed up user I can produce custom-made, reduced URLs that people can actually spell. I utilize these whenever I require to share a link to a Canva or Google Slides presentation because the default URLs supplied by those services are constantly long and incoherent..

Bitly is an useful URL shortener that Ive utilized for numerous years. There is a simple method to rapidly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without really clicking on the link. When you include the “+” the URL will redirect to Bitly rather of to whatever the initial URL was.

Unfortunately, not all Bitly users are utilizing them for good reasons. Some individuals utilize them to hide wicked links. Luckily, there is a simple way to rapidly determine whats behind a Bitly URL without really clicking on the link. The technique is to merely include a “+” to the end of any Bitly URL. When you add the “+” the URL will reroute to Bitly instead of to whatever the original URL was. That will then show you the Bitly page on which the reduced URL is hosted and will show you what the original link was..
You can try this trick with a URL that I recently shortened. Bit.ly/ THWTAPRIL will lead you straight to a copy of the slides that I used my recent 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..
View this short video to see how you can utilize the “+” technique to learn whats concealed behind a Bitly link..