21st Gen EdTech Tools: Three Great URL Shorteners

Sharing is fun and exciting! Today's generation, enjoy sharing files, media, notes, webpage, blogs, URL and other stuffs over the internet. Social networking sites are flooded with links from their various users, even in different web communities or blogsites where netizens'/ bloggers' post. However, copying the links of what we like to post and share are somewhat very annoying because of the length of these links. Especially when you have a very little space for URL add to paste on. For teacher who usually writes on the board will not dare to write too long URL address. It is very impractical to do so. URL shortener is the solution to this problem.

I would like to share with you three most often URL shortener that I use in my class or when I post something in the net. These three URL shorteners are goo.gl, tinyurl and bitly.

Goo.gl is a URL shortener which is associated with google. In this tool you can always access your shorten URL address since it will be stored in your google account. There is also a stat portion in which you may view how many people are viewing your shorten URL as shown in the picture below:

Goo.gl comes with a toolbar button that you can install from chrome store web. It is a small icon that when you click on it, it will automatically shorten the URL address of the window that is open. After the shortening, a pop-up window will appear and will let you choose different option.

You may also take an action or service like sharing in directly to other website specified by goo.gl. An extra feature of this URL shortener is that, it doesn't only shortens the URL address but it will also create a QR code of it. This QR code is very useful to mobile phone user that has the ability to scan QR code. This tool is FREE.

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Another tool is the tinyurl. It also have the same ability to shorten URL address just like the goo.gl, however, the big difference is that in tinyurl, you can customize the shorten URL address by simply type the address of your choice. Tinyurl can also be added in your tool bar. In this sense, when you click on it, a new tab will appear in your window that contains the shorten URL address. It is FREE to use.

The extra feature of this tool is that it allows blogger, webmasters, web creators to use tinyurl code to create an input box in their blog, webpages or website where visitors can use URL shortener even without going to tinyurl.com shown below

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Lastly, there is this bitly that also shorten URL addresses. In this tool, you can directly use it even without subscribing in. However, when you signup in bitly, you can use extra feature of this tool other than just shortening URL. Bitly will store all your shorten URL in your account so you can remember it when you need to use it again. It offers stat of your URLs so you can monitor how many viewers do each of your URL has.

Tired of bookmarking websites that you like visiting? Bitly offers bitmarking. Bitmarks saves, searches, and organize all your shorten URL address. You may also share this links through facebook, twitter or e-mail.